“The CMA are looking to the power of better information to help improve customer outcomes in current account banking. Greater transparency around the price of current accounts and overdrafts must be a good thing, but we’re not sure that cold data is not enough to swing the needle on the issues that affect competition and pricing of current accounts.

Whether it is choosing a bank, buying a pair of jeans or finding a plumber people respond to much else beyond data. The difference between these products and a current account is that most of the decisions we make about jeans or finding plumbers are one-offs. People tend to have one or at most two current accounts, and they don’t tend to move from their original choice. Hiding the long term cost of that choice behind some sort of up-front cash offer or headline interest rate is not right for consumers. Loss leading might be considered by some to be a neat trick, but it is only done by firms who believe that they will make money back through customers who go on to buy other products and services. Allowing this loss-leading behaviour also enables incumbents to control access to the market – it is one of the reasons why there is more consumer choice in savings than in current accounts.

The CMA proposals can help - more data that are easy to compare and which look at the whole life cost of a current account and overdraft would be a good thing. Stopping firms from loss-leading with their current accounts would be a better signal that competition and transparency matter.”