Supplementary memorandum by the British
Bankers' Association (BBA)
You asked for our help in reconciling the independent
submissions made to you by the largest six retail banks and by
the BBA itself, in background to the Select Committee's meeting
on 18 May[65].
The attached table provides an overview of the banks' overall
activity in the social banking arena. I hope you find this helpful.
As you will see, there were around 4.62 million
accounts with basic functionality prior to the Universal Banking
Agreement being signed on 1 April 2003. Since then, the BBA has
reported on a quarterly basis the take up of basic accounts which
qualify towards the shared goal and the combined total of all
basic accounts which also includes those opened prior to April
2003.
Some banks may therefore have reported figures
for accounts that qualify towards the target and those opened
prior to April 2003.
As you will see from the table, the net increase
in accounts opened by the 17 account providers between April 2003
and the end of 2005 is 1.94 million—of which 1.64 million
are Post Office accessible and qualify towards the target. This
gives an overall total of 6.39 million accounts with basic functionality
in operation. Of course, 20,000 have additionally been upgraded
to fuller featured accounts.
I hope this helps you in your assessment of
the overall picture of the market. Should you wish to explore
this data issue further, my executives are available.
| All accounts at 1 April 2003
| NET increase in accounts (accounts opened minus accounts closed) since
1 April 2003
| No of accounts upgraded | Acounts at end-2005
|
| Post Office accessible basic bank accounts opened after 2003
| | + 1.64m* | 0.02m
| 1.62m |
| Post Office accessible basic bank accounts opened before April 2003
| 0.75m | | 0
| 0.75m |
| NON-post office accessible basic accounts |
3.87m | +0.30m | 0.15m
| 4.02m |
| 4.62m | 1.94m
| 0.17m | 6.39m |
*Figure as published by the British Bankers' Association. May
2006
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