Bank switching: Santander the big winner as customers ditch Barclays

The latest current account switching figures reveal the banks most people are switching to – and those that are losing customers by the bucketload.

There has been a sharp drop in the number of bank customers ditching their existing bank in favour of a rival provider.

That’s according to the latest quarterly figures from the Current Account Switch Service (CASS).

It found that just under 248,000 people moved their main bank account between July and September, which is notably lower than the 313,000 who did so in the previous quarter.

While it's interesting to see the latest switching trends overall from CASS, the really useful stats can be found by looking into the specific banks and building societies that gained and lost the most customers.

This gives us a clearer idea of which banks are the winners and losers out of all this switching activity.

The data is provided by Pay UK, the retail payments authority.

As it takes a while to pull these together, the latest stats available are for the first quarter of 2024, running from April to June.

Here’s what these stats reveal.

The banks we are all switching to

Santander was the biggest winner by some distance, with a net gain of more than 58,000 bank customers. 

That strong performance is in stark contrast to the previous quarter when it was actually one of the worst-performing banks overall, losing more than 11,000 customers.

So what drove such a remarkable turnaround?

In short, it was all down to cash bribes. 

During the latest quarter, Santander was offering a whopping £185 switching incentive to anyone joining the bank and closing their old account.

Whereas in the past factors like customer service or distance to the nearest branch might have been the main factors influencing switchers, these days it's all about these joining incentives.

You'll regularly see companies soaring up the charts in any quarter when they have juicy bonuses on offer.

The second biggest winner over the quarter was Nationwide with 22,894 new customers.

The most likely driver behind signups was all the positive publicity around its Fairer Share promotion, which saw the building society hand £100 back to every member and give them exclusive access to a top savings account.

You can see the full list of banks that managed to grow their customer base in the table below.

The worst-performing banks

At the other end of the scale, Barclays woes continued as it remained the bank that lost the most customers.

It shed 28,835 between April and June, following on from the 38,779 departures seen over January and March.

It was a similarly bleak story for Halifax, which was once again the runner up to Barclays, having lost 18,175 customers in the latest quarter and 21,174 in the three months prior.

You can see a full breakdown of the biggest losers in the table below.

Switching bonus requirements getting stricter

As mentioned earlier, it's clearly switching incentives that play the biggest role in the switching merry-go-round.

There is a sizeable number of savvy Brits who switch habitually to whichever brand has the biggest offer going.

The banks have responded to this trend by making it harder to qualify for these bungs in the hopes of deterring serial switchers looking to simply bag the bonus and run.

You'll regularly see requirements like setting up multiple Direct Debits, transferring money into the account and spending on the card in order to get the joining bonus.

It's worth keeping this in mind if you're thinking of taking advantage of one of these generous bungs.

Speaking of which, you can view our roundup of the best bonuses here.

At present, you can get up to £200 from the likes of Lloyds, Nationwide and First Direct.

No doubt you'll be seeing all these brands soaring up the switching charts in future months.

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