The Current Account Switch Service (CASS) has released new statistics, revealing that almost 4.5 million successful current account switches have taken place in the UK since the service launched in 2013.

However, the number of people moving their current account to a new provider has started to slow. Across the 2017 calendar year there were a total of 931,956 switches recorded, compared to 1,010,423 switches in 2016. CASS reported a switching success rate of 99.3 per cent for last year.

The latest data also showed the number of switches between each bank during the second quarter of 2017, with Nationwide (38,628) and TSB (20,120) securing large net customer gains over the period. HSBC (4,927) and Tesco Bank (1,244) followed, while the biggest losers were NatWest (-13,826), the Co-operative (-12,710), and Barclays (-10,164).

Awareness levels of the CASS service hit a new high of 84 per cent in October, following the launch of a public awareness campaign during Q3 and Q4.

A statement from CASS read: “Q4 2017 saw particularly high levels of switching in November 2017, which is likely to have been driven by broader bank market activity, such as the launch of high value switching incentives. These were supported by the central high profile CASS advertising campaign launched in autumn.”

It continued: “This month (January) saw the launch of Open Banking in the UK, allowing consumers and small businesses to share their banking data securely with third parties, enabling a range of possible services such as product comparison based on personal requirements. Open Banking also has the potential to encourage multiple product holding, given the improved ease of accessing multiple accounts through aggregator services.”

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