The public consultation now launched by the Commission is aimed at gathering views on the transparency and comparability of bank account fees, bank account switching and access to a basic bank account. The consultation, which will be available in all EU official languages, will run until 12 June 2012.

The European Commission launched a public consultation which seeks views on the transparency and comparability of bank account fees, bank account switching and access to a basic bank account. The consultation comes after the Commission published the results of a study indicating that, among other findings, 8 out of 10 mystery shoppers were not able to switch their bank account successfully.

According to the Commission, 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 easily switch ban account providers, including on a cross-border mode. In order to achieve these goals, a number of initiatives have been taken at national level in the last years, such as to increase the transparency of fees linked to the operation of bank accounts, help consumers to smoothly switch between account providers and facilitate consumers’ access to basic bank accounts. However, such initiatives have followed different approaches and have had varying degrees of success.

The results of the public consultation launched now will be taken into account by the Commission when identifying and designing the measures to be included in its Bank Accounts initiative later this year. The consultation will run until 12 June 2012 and will be available in all EU official languages.