A poll by comparison site Uswitch.com has revealed that people would be more willing to trust their current accounts with retailers including John Lewis, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons and Amazon than they are with the big banks.
With scandal after scandal rocking the largest banks in Britain, people have quickly lost confidence in them. Combined with the constant stories of how difficult it is for businesses and individuals to get loans, incredible bankers’ bonuses, IT failures, poor customer service and more, it’s all led to a situation where, according to Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, people “doubt whether banks have their interests at heart.”
Michael Ossei, a personal finance expert at Uswitch.com, said: “It is a telling reflection of the UK banking industry that consumers are willing to put their trust in brands that have no previous banking experience.”
It’s not just the scandals and media attention though, as people don’t believe banks are offering them good deals either. In recent days, banks have dropped savings rates and increased borrowing despite just being given an extra £80billion to encourage them to lend more freely.
Louis Brook from Move Your Money, a group which encourages people to stop using the big banks, believes that they “have not bothered competing in the current account market and instead made it as difficult as possible for customers to switch whilst swindling them for everything they can. The banks contempt for their customers is finally coming home to roost.”
It’s clear to anyone that confidence in our large banks is at an all time low, yet they don’t seem to be doing anything to change their image. With Marks & Spencers opening a current account in October, and Tesco and Virgin both expected to make current accounts available too, it could soon be too late for the banks to change their ways if they begin haemorrhaging customers.