The Switch Guarantee, which is the new current account switching service, saw a 17 per cent increase year-on-year in customers switching banks during the last quarter of 2013.
The first quarterly switching report from the UK Payments Council, which is overseeing the project, shows that customers appear more confident about changing banks since the launch of the Guarantee in September last year.
The peak month for switching was November, when 105,000 accounts were changed, but even during the busy month of December some 83,729 accounts were switched, a 54 per cent increase on the same month in 2012.
The report further pointed out that approximately 281,144 UK customers were covered by the new service when they switched bank accounts and also said that almost 59 per cent of the public were aware of the Current Account Switch Service by the end of December last year.
The Council is also confident that the number of people aware of the Guarantee will increase, as there is currently a major national advertising campaign running, which started this month.
Under the scheme, account holders should be able to move their bank account to another provider within seven days and after they have switched an account, a new redirection service automatically transfers any payments accidentally made to a customer’s old account to the new account for 13 months.
A spokesperson for the Payments Council said that the service aims to eradicate any concern customers may have had in the past about switching their current account and is delighted that the scheme has got off to such a good start.
They added that the new switching rules, which have been designed to break the monopoly of major British banks, also plan to avoid scandals including mis-selling of loan insurance and complex interest rate hedging products.
So far, a total of 22 banks and building societies have signed up to the new Switch Guarantee.