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Perhaps "the bird" was concerned about gettings its wings clipped....?

Apparantly a decision to call this new service PingPom has been delayed......

Despite successive reports over the past 15 years, no definitive action to open up the retail banking market has been taken. Today's CMA report will help remove some of the barriers to competition but it does not go far enough. Beyond the CMA report, what we really need to see is the whole market being opened to allow more current account entrants, thus encouraging consumer choice. Challenger banks, building societies and some credit unions are a logical vehicle for this change. However, currently the whole “competitive” market is constrained beneath the market weight and power of the big four banks who control what is known as agency banking and consequent market pricing, and that is the core issue which is not addressed in this report.

Current accounts are subsidised not provided for free. Moreover if you add back the overdraft revenue, especially unauthorised fees and the 0.5% Central Bank minimum interest that the banks receive on all their current positive cash balances, the loss making argument starts to fall away. If you then add back, based upon current pricings the income if a consumer makes CHAPS or International payments from their current account the mark up over costs is huge The margin on just one CHAPS payment over cost for example pays for over 600 Faster Payment transactions at cost. The truth is that the challengers overheads are managed and their technology operational cost is based on appropriate and efficient technologies. Applying a pseudo sales tax to competitors on behalf of the incumbents is not appropriate to the objective of developing a vibrant and competitive market. 

I agree, and to support this the evidence is already before us. 

What do GE, Disney, HP and Microsoft all have in common? They were all start-ups during a steep decline in the U.S. economy. GE started during the panic of 1873, Disney started during the recession of 1923-24, HP began during the Great Depression, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft during the recession of 1975. 

Brexit can, and will, create its own start-ups, it just needs entrepreneurs! 

Once this has some traction and proof points on chargeback and refund volumes the merchant service charges for accepting Apple Web should fall dramatically for these transactions. It would be great to see some card scheme comments on this exciting trend? 

So who waited for so long to bring this one up??? 

Its is far deeper than the GRG issue and remains a real and continuing issue today that for some reason the Exco deliberrtly ignore. 

Selling shares in a monopoly provider does not create competition, but should reduce any "market disadvantage" controls. The report makes interesting reading but to create a true open market requires true competiton, and I am unclear how just opening access resolves this at a sustainable or practical level. 

Markus, ISO 200022 is the new standard :-)