YOU know something has really hit the mainstream when it gets written into an Eastenders storyline.
So when Sonia this week berated an indignant Dot Cotton for refusing to transfer onto a cheaper utility deal, we had proof positive that the switching message is getting through to the public at large.
This will not have been lost on Santander, which, as the latest current account switching figures show, has suffered in the wake of cutting the interest rate on its 123 account.
Having previously paid one per cent on balances of £1,000 or more, two per cent on anything between £2,000 and £2,999 and three per cent on balances between £3,000 and £20,000, the bank slashed its rate to a flat 1.5 per cent in November last year.
Unsurprisingly, the account had proved popular, with data from the Current Account Switch Service showing that in the three years to the end of 2016 a net 454,000 people had transferred into Santander accounts. That is nearly 83,000 more than chose to join nearest rival Halifax.
Perhaps even less surprising, as Andrew Hagger of MoneyComms pointed out, is that in the final three months of 2016 over 7,000 people switched out of Santander products, making that the only quarter in the three-year period the bank suffered outflows.
And why not - if you are no longer receiving the product or service you signed up for why would you show loyalty to the provider?
As Mr Hagger said: “It’s good to see that a decent number of customers are prepared to up sticks and move their custom elsewhere rather than stay put and simply accept savage cuts to their current account deal.”
What is even more revealing, though, is that as around 3.6 million people held the account prior to the rate cut millions have chosen to stay put.
Though Dot Cotton has yet to relent, soap history says it won’t be long before she starts banging the switching drum. If she can do it, surely you can too.
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