Review of the Northern Ireland Personal Current Account Banking Market Investigation Order 2008 : final decision

The Competition Commission (CC) has decided to amend the Northern Ireland Personal Current Account Banking Market Investigation Order 2008, which brought in a number of measures to improve competition for personal current account (PCA) banking customers in Northern Ireland.

This is in order to comply with European directives and confirms the CC's provisional decision which was published in October 2010.

The main reason for the changes is that since the 2008 Order was made, the UK has implemented two European directives - the Payment Services Directive (PSD) and Consumer Credit Directive (CCD) - which include requirements relating to PCAs.

Having received advice from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the CC has reviewed the 2008 Order and has decided to remove those parts of the 2008 Order that duplicate or are incompatible with the requirements of the European directives.

The CC has retained some requirements as the EU directives are not tailored to address all of the specific competition problems identified in the Northern Ireland PCA banking market.