Mobility of bank customers in the EU: Much ado about little

Retail banking markets in most EU member states are highly competitive. This makes it all the more surprising that the European Commission has identified low customer mobility as a reason for an alleged lack of competition in retail banking. Numerous studies actually show that the low level of customer mobility is not caused by obstacles to switching accounts, but by the fact that customers are satisfied with the service provided by their banks. So the actual problem is not low customer mobility in national markets, but rather the low level of cross-border account mobility. One day, it should require just as little effort to transfer a bank account to another EU member state as it does within a national market today.

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