20 March 2012

The Commission launched a consultation on bank accounts

Retail banking market structures differ considerably among Member States and are still fragmented along national lines. The 2007 retail banking inquiry pointed to the existence of obstacles to customer choice and mobility. These included the lack of transparency and comparability of bank fees and high switching costs incurred by consumers when they change their bank account providers. A third related problem concerns the difficulties faced by a number of EU citizens in accessing basic banking services.

In the last years, a number of initiatives have been taken at national level to: a) increase the transparency of fees linked to the operation of bank accounts; b) help consumers to switch smoothly between account providers; and c) facilitate consumers’ access to basic bank accounts. However, such initiatives have followed different approaches and have had varying degrees of success. Consequently, consumers in different countries enjoy different levels of protection and the resulting patchwork of rules and codes of conduct renders cross-border mobility of market actors more difficult.

Consumers should have access to bank account services anywhere in the EU, whatever their Member State of permanent residence is, and should be able to switch bank account providers easily, including on a cross-border mode. All this requires transparent and comparable information on fees related to bank accounts. The Monti report put emphasis on the need to improve bank fees transparency, to ensure the availability of standardised and comparable information for retail financial products and to facilitate bank customer mobility. As a follow-up to this recommendation, the Commission announced in the Single Market Act its intention to continue the work on protecting consumers in the area of retail financial services and mentioned in particular the transparency of bank fees.

The object of this consultation document is therefore to assess the need for action at EU level and, if so, what measures could be taken in relation to one or all of the three issues mentioned above.

Full consultation paper

© European Commission