We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA’s) provisional decision on its strategic review of markets remedies. We continue to support the purpose of the review and welcome the CMA’s recognition that market, behavioural and regulatory developments mean that a number of legacy remedies are no longer necessary or proportionate

 

We welcome the CMA’s provisional decision to remove in full the Store Card Market Investigation Order 2006 and the Payment Protection Insurance Market Investigation Order 2011, and to remove substantial parts of the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017 (RBMIO).

 

We remain of the view that the CMA should remove all elements of the RBMIO under review, including Part 5 (Provision of transaction history) and Part 8 (Publication of rates for SME lending products), as well as the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) Remedies Undertakings 2017. The adverse effects on competition are no longer present in a way that justifies continuing these prescriptive obligations and the statutory test for revocation

 

To this end, we encourage the CMA to reconsider the provisional decision to retain Parts 5 and 8 given that the evidence points in the opposite direction: the relevant markets have changed materially, the remedies no longer address a live competition problem in a proportionate way, and their continuation risks preserving legacy obligations that sit uneasily alongside more modern regulatory and market mechanisms. Similarly, we believe that the CASS Undertakings, which stem from the same market investigation, can also be revoked on the basis that changes in behaviours and the overall landscape have changed and mean that this measure is no longer proportionate or necessary.