Glorious Guardian Leader!

No, really, this is, it's quite stupendous. First they note that "free" accounts aren't actually free. No, really, it's true, the banks do rake in cash by looking after ours:

That amounts to £152 for every active account, and gives the lie to any claim that current accounts are free.

They then (rightly) go on to note that the British are not any more Simple Shoppers (unlike the Government) and are actually pretty savvy when it comes to matters financial:

British consumers have got rather good at voting with their feet. If another supermarket offers juicier buy one get one free deals, we make a beeline there; if better mortgage deals are to be had on the internet, we will have no shame about turning into "rate tarts".

But, but, they go on, why don't more of us switch bank accounts? It must, of course, be because the market is failing, that doses of heavy handed regulation are required:

So the banking market is not working properly, largely because most customers are not behaving as people in markets normally do.

That's really a rather remarkable statement there: there's plenty of times when we say that structural problems with a market (say a monopoly although there are others) mean that people cannot act in a market like manner. But to say that people, in a market, do not act in a market like manner is, umm, well, write that up and prove it and I'm sure that one or other of the Nobel committees will give you a call.

The part that the leader writers have entirely missed is this one:

And when customers ranked their current account's service and value for money on a scale of 1 to 10, the average score was 7.

The reason there isn't massive churn in the market for current accounts is because the vast majority of us are entirely happy with the service we get and the amount we pay for it.

My own account has some multiple tens of thousands a year going through it as will the accounts of just about anyone who is likely to be reading this site. I get that money stored for me, a method is provided for me to make payments to others in various timely and convenient manners, I get a card which allows me to take cash from a hole in the wall in just about any country or currency and they write to me regularly to remind me of what I've been doing.

And I pay them less than 0.5% of the turnover for the work they do for me.

This is, to my mind (and apparently to a significant number of my co-citizens), not evidence of a market not working properly, this is in fact evidence of one working very well indeed: we the consumers are getting the services we want at a price we are happy to pay while those supplying said services are making a healthy profit.

Seriously, what's not to like about being offered a bargain at a price you're willing to pay?

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