The Financial Regulator (FR) has found that many Banks in Ireland are failing to provide satisfactory information to consumers on how they can switch personal accounts to rival financial institutions.
The FR undertook the excercise to monitor compliance with the Irish Banking Federation's (IBF) Personal Switching Code which was introduced in 2005.
The results of the 'mystery shopping' found that just 59 per cent of the bank branches offered adequate information to customers on how to switch banking provider.
The IBF switching code is meant to make it easier for customers to change banking provider. Almost 59,000 personal accounts had been switched up to the end of 2008, amounting to an average of 14,750 accounts every year.
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