Now you’re just a click away from the bank account that suits YOU
New ‘midata’ tool will analyse your transactions and then find best deal
A NEW current account switching tool is the first stage of a wider evolution in how people search for banking, energy and mobile phone deals.
THE UK’s first tool for comparing bank accounts according to an individual’s personal spending and saving habits is now available to millions of people. Comparison website Gocompare is first to offer the free service, launched last week with MP and City Minister Andrea Leadsom.
It forms part of the Government’s ‘midata’ project – designed to give consumers better access to and control of electronic personal data that companies hold about them.
At the moment the midata current account tool is available only to customers of Lloyds Bank, Barclays, Santander, HSBC, RBS – including their subsidiaries – and Nationwide Building Society.
To use it, customers log into online banking and click on a ‘midata’ button, which spits out a spreadsheet containing the past 12 months’ transactions and data.
This file can then be ‘dragged and dropped’ into Gocompare’s midata comparison page. More than 1,500 calculations are made at speed, based on 30 types of transactions – from overdraft charges to foreign exchange fees and interest earned.
A list of results is generated in seconds, covering the ‘whole of the market’ to include smaller challenger banks as well as the big high street institutions, and compares across the range of basic, standard and packaged current account types.
Customers are shown in pounds and pence how much better off they could be with another bank account and where their own account ranks in the list.
Matt Sanders, banking spokesman for Gocompare, says: ‘A comparison is based on personal and behavioural data, so what you actually do with your account, rather than what you think you do.’
Other comparison websites are likely to offer similar tools in the future.
MAKING THE SWITCH
CUSTOMERS can choose a new account from the website’s results list and click on a button directing them to the new bank or building society’s home web page.
From there they can switch over using the free Current Account Switch Service, which automatically transfers a customer’s account from one bank or building society to another.
The service guarantees a faster switch in seven working days, auto- matic transfer of direct debits or standing orders and a redirection service, so any stray payments requested from or sent to the old account are re-routed to the new, lasting for 36 months from the switch date.
Any problems that cause a customer detriment triggers a refund by the new bank. To find out more about the guarantee, visit the website simplerworld.co.uk.
SECURITY
A MAJOR concern among critics is the security of the tool and whether
it is wise to hand over personal data to a comparison website.
However, the file downloaded from a bank contains no identifying features about the account holder and all data is deleted once a customer has finished comparing what is available.
Andrea Leadsom says: ‘This innovation will put much more control in the hands of customers and could transform the current account market.
‘It’s also very important that customers know their data is protected if they wish to take advantage of this new tool.
‘I’m pleased the banking industry has worked closely with the Government and the Information Com- missioner’s Office to make sure safeguards are in place, particularly around making anonymous an individual’s banking data.’
THE DRAWBACKS
CUSTOMERS of smaller banks and building societies are not able to download a history of transactions and therefore cannot carry out a midata comparison.
But these so-called ‘challenger banks’ are expected to join the initiative at a later date.
In the meantime customers una- ble to use midata can still use the traditional comparison tables to search for a different account. But people who don’t use the internet or online banking remain excluded.
Meanwhile, points, perks and customer service associated with different accounts are difficult to compare using a computer algorithm, so don’t factor into the equation – but for many customers these features add value.
The method for comparing could also be slicker. Dragging and dropping a file is an easy enough task for the computer-literate, but is clunky in the context of sophisticated technology available.
Gocompare says the process is likely to be updated and made even simpler in the future.