Here you can browse the report together with the Proceedings of the Committee. The published report was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 24 March 2011.
Terms of Reference
1 Introduction
Competition: an overview
2 The landscape of retail banking in the UK
What is retail banking?
Drivers of consolidation and increased concentration
Market shares and concentration levels in key retail markets
Personal current accounts
Mortgage market
Savings accounts
Unsecured personal loans
SME market
Conclusions on concentration levels
Does increased concentration matter?
The link between concentration and competition
Comparisons with other sectors
International comparisons
How competitive is retail banking?
Low levels of customer satisfaction
Large size and economies of scale
3 The current account market and switching
'Free' banking
Costs, revenues and profitability of current account provision
Revenues
Profitability of current accounts
Costs to consumers and clarity of overdraft charges
Winners, losers and cross-subsidy under the free-in-credit model
Price transparency
A barrier to competition?
The future of free banking?
Supreme Court decision on assessing fairness of unauthorised overdraft charges
Switching
Problems with switching
Fraud and fear of switching
Account portability
4 Competition for SME business
Finance for SMEs
Customer service
Concentration
Barriers to entry
Alternatives for SMEs
5 Encouraging greater competition and new entry
New entrants—the new kids on the block
Brand recognition
Branch network
Breaking up the banks on competition grounds
RBS and Lloyds divestments
RBS divestment
Lloyds divestment
Role of UKFI
Lloyds/HBOS merger
Promoting mutuals
Policy approaches to mutuals and smaller banks
Remutualising Northern Rock
Other barriers to entry
Bank authorisation
Other regulatory issues
Access to information and industry initiatives
Competition and the new regulatory framework
6 Barriers to exit
Too important to fail—too big to compete against?
7 Conclusion
Conclusion and Recommendations
Formal Minutes
Witnesses
List of printed written evidence
List of additional written evidence
List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament Oral and Written Evidence - HC 612-II 18 November 2010 23 November 2010 30 November 2010 7 December 2010 14 December 2010 11 January 2011 18 January 2011 20 January 2011 1 February 2011 2 February 2011 Written Evidence
Additional written evidence (unprinted)
