Switching soars

The latest internal data from The Co-operative Bank Current Accounts has revealed a 123% annual increase in customers switching their current accounts to The Co-operative Bank.

The figures show that the providers that customers coming to The Co-operative Bank are most likely to switch from are the large high street banks, such as HBOS, Lloyds and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The data also highlights a 7-fold annual increase in customers switching to The Co-operative Bank from RBS. And since details of Fred Goodwin's pension entitlement emerged last month, it appears that customers of RBS have started to vote with their feet, with the numbers switching to The Co-operative Bank from RBS doubling in the last month alone.

John Barker, Head of Current Accounts at The Co-operative Bank comments: "There is a growing dissatisfaction with the major high street providers and customers are now no longer prepared to stay loyal to their existing bank, if they are frustrated with the service or have concerns about the security or values of the institution."

"Although the current account market is generally thought of as stagnant, our records show that since mid 2008 the market as a whole has started to change, with customers seeking security and looking to move their money to organisations they can trust".

"This type of growth is normally rare in the traditionally stagnant switching market and in the past this increases of this kind have only been possible by spending vast sums of money on incentives for customers to switch".

The data shows that the increase in switching activity at The Co-operative Bank initially started last year, at the same time as when Lehman Brothers collapsed, which is widely regarded as the period when many UK banks hit serious funding problems. The switching activity has now increased to the point where last month, The Co-operative Bank recorded the highest ever number of customers switching in.