Bacs Payment Schemes (Bacs), the organisation behind the UK’s Current Account Switch Service has welcomed the announcement by industry body, UK Finance, that the account opening process has been made simpler for SMEs.
The move means that account providers will now require the same basic set of information from new small business customers looking to open or switch an account.
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Working with 18 business bank account providers, UK Finance has created an online guide, including a streamlined checklist, outlining the essential details and documents that most small businesses will need when applying to open an account.
This comes in response to The Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) investigation into the retail banking market, which identified that the account opening process was a barrier to switching for some small and medium-sized businesses.
Bacs says that the move will help boost competition across the market.
Bacs’ Director of Product and Strategy, Anne Pieckielon, said: “As operators of the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), we welcome today’s announcement and believe it is another important step towards simplifying the account opening and switching process.
“We know that small business owners are busy enough without the need to deal with further layers of time-consuming admin which, in many cases, could deter some from getting the very best deal from their business account.
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By GlobalData“We have worked hard to build a service which makes it simple and stress-free to switch business accounts, and we are pleased to see that another barrier has now been removed. Putting the power back into the hands of small business owners can help stimulate competition and create a market which works for all.”
A total of 4.45 million successful switches have taken place since the CASS service was launched in 2013. But since the first year of the service, there has been a year-on-year decline in customers switching their main current account.
Total switches in 2017 amounted to 931,956, down 8% from 1,010,423 in 2016.
