Switching with confidence
Issue 367 | 4 August 2022
Trouble, strife…
In a week that we have seen trouble in the IT room for a UK building society and strife in the boardroom for a global bank it’s useful that the UK’s Current Account Switching Service (CASS) offers a simple, effortless and trustworthy way to switch our bank account to a new provider.
The UK’s Current Account Switching Service (CASS) mediates a transfer to a new banking provider in just seven days - guaranteed.
…and trust
But can we trust the CASS process to safely facilitate our move from an ‘old’ bank to a ‘new’ bank?
Helpfully each quarter Pay.UK, the operators of the UK’s CASS scheme, publish service performance data. Yesterday we analysed the switching winning and losing banks and in this newsletter we dig into the data that shows us how the overall switching service is performing.
Q2 2022: Switching numbers
Current account switches dipped in January 2021 (31,854) and February 2021 (42,398) as Lockdown 3.0 took hold, there was a significant increase in March (63,724) as the roadmap for the COVID-19 recovery became clearer. This recovery continued throughout the remainder of 2021 as restrictions continued to ease – only falling back in December as variant restrictions increased together with the usual seasonal impact.
Activity in Q2 2022 is ahead of 2021, although the gap is narrowing which is expected given we were emerging from Lockdown conditions last year.
In the second three months of 2022, 191,777 switches took place through the service, which is 12,336 more than in the same quarter in 2021:
The Current Account Switch Service has now completed 8.2 million switches since the launch in September 2013 and successfully redirected 123.7 million payments.
David Piper, Head of Service Lines at Pay.UK, owner and operator of the Current Account Switch Service, said:
As life in the UK begins to return to its pre-pandemic form, we have seen an uplift in the numbers choosing to switch to a new current account. This trend could continue in 2022 with many looking to take advantage of rising interest rates and the cashback incentives that some providers are currently offering.
Of course, rising living costs provide another reason for people to assess whether their existing current account is providing the right service for their needs, or whether moving to another current account might be a prudent move.
Those considering whether it’s time for a new current account should remember that the Current Account Switch Service is free to use and provides a valuable layer of protection to those wishing to switch in a fast and stress-free manner.
Q2 2022: Switching performance
The CASS insights published by Pay.UK (the operator of the switching service) show us that during Q2 2022:
In the rolling year to Q2 2022, current account switching volumes reached 850,243, an increase of 203,674 compared to the same period the year prior.
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