Consumers should make sure they fully research the whole of the financial market before committing to a deal in order to maximise their satisfaction.
In many cases, people are neglecting to shop around for the best deal even if they are receiving poor service from their current bank, despite possibly being able to benefit substantially by opting for a new current account - especially during the current economic climate.
Recent figures from Datamonitor's Financial Services Consumer Insight shows that just ten per cent of consumers would consider changing banks, even though half of those involved in the survey admitted that they did not trust their current bank. A total of 61 per cent of consumers explained they had lost faith following a specific incident that affected someone they know.
While data from the Financial Services Authority recently revealed that complaints concerning banks rose by nearly a third from the first half of 2006 to the first half of 2008, with complaints about current accounts up by 46 per cent, from 368,000 to 536,000.
Ed Bowsher, head of consumer finance at money site lovemoney.com, believes that the ongoing development of the financial services market means that new products are constantly being introduced that could offer consumers improved value and service. In particular, companies such as Tesco are now starting to offer favourable financial products that could challenge the more traditional providers such as High Street banks.
"What consumers need to be doing now is looking at the whole market as too often they have a longstanding relationship with their bank and carry on taking more products from them and allow themselves to be cross-sold by staff in the bank," he said.
Therefore, it is vital that people take a more pro-active approach to managing their financial matters and start shopping around for more suitable products.
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