Questions and answers for OFT personal current account work

[Budgie]

Link : http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/per...ksqa100708.pdf

Updated 10th July 2008


Brilliant, I believe it has answers to some of the Questions that Exc raised in his recent letter to the OFT !!!!!!!

[EXC]

Re: Questions and answers for OFT personal current account work

From: Nick Spooner [mailto:nick.spooner@virgin.net]
Sent: 09 July 2008 18:35
To: Kate Farrow
Subject: PCA

Hi Kate

I attended the hearing and I understand that the OFT will in inform the judge on 25 July as to the provisional findings of the PCA and inform the banks by the end of July for consultation. Do you know at what point the investigation will be published?

Many thanks

Nick

Hi Nick

We'll be updating the judge on our progress and current position on 25 July and will be writing to the banks with our initial views on fairness issues shortly afterwards.

In relation to publication of the investigation, I'm assuming you mean in the way that we did in the credit card contracts investigation. As you are aware, we published the statement ‘Calculating fair default charges in credit card contracts’ in April 2006 as part of our regulatory strategy for tackling the credit cards issue. The intention of this was two-fold: to provide guidance, by way of a set of principles, to credit card issuers when calculating default charges, in order to ensure as far as possible the fairness of such charges for the purposes of the UTCCRs; and to set out our regulatory strategy in order to bring swift changes across the whole market in the shortest possible timeframe. The statement did not seek to determine what a fair level of charge might be as this would depend on the precise business circumstance of each credit card issuer.

In relation to bank unarranged overdraft charges, our regulatory strategy has been determined by the early commencement of the test case process. Issues of the type included in our April 2006 statement are in the process of being litigated by the banks and OFT. Consequently we have no plans to publish a statement of position now or in the near future.

We do however recognise the public interest in our work in this area, and are being as open as we can about our investigation and the test case process in our regularly updated communications.

Kate

[Budgie]

Re: Questions and answers for OFT personal current account work

Hi Nick,

How's LA ??

I still want to get hold of copies of the updated G1 and G2 annexes. Now that they have been discussed at a public hearing is there any reason why the OFT cannot release them to us? Is it worth asking Kate again ?

Rgds Budgie

[EXC]

Re: Questions and answers for OFT personal current account work

I don't think so

[borgbaiter]

Re: Questions and answers for OFT personal current account work

hi

given the below it doesnt seem likely the OFT intend to give the Judge anything to go back to the county courts with in the way of lifting stays. or even any clue as to what a fair charge would be. am i reading it wrong or is that the implications. Another three months consultation too :tinysmile_aha_t:

"Market study

To achieve this outcome we launched a personal current account market study
in April 2007 to consider the wider questions about competition and value for
money in the provision of personal current accounts, such as:

•

transparency of costs to consumers, and

•

ease of switching.
We will be publishing the study later in July. We will publish a consultation
paper at the same time, setting out the issues identified in the market study and
some thoughts on potential measures to address these. We plan to consult with
the industry for a minimum of three months (in accordance with Cabinet Office
guidelines) during which time we plan to have an informed debate with
interested parties so that the issues raised in the study and potential measures

to address those can be discussed."


Borgbaiter