How about a passport system to smooth route to banking switch?

Last month saw the highest number of people switching their current accounts from one bank to another. And the total number switching in the first quarter was 20% higher than the same period a year ago.

But the March total was just 124,615 and the quarterly figure 309,678. Out of a total of 68 million personal current accounts in the UK, those are paltry numbers. Indeed, just 2.8 million switches have taken place since the Current Account Switch Service was launched in 2013.

While last month’s number was a record, total switches in the last 12 months — 1.06 million — were actually down on the preceding year’s 1.4 million. Compare that with the rate at which we switch energy suppliers — regularly more than 400,000 a month and four million a year.

Paul Pester, chief executive of Spanish-owned TSB, made an excellent point to me last week. He observed that banking is probably the only service industry in the UK where customers do not receive a monthly or quarterly bill. Instead, what we pay for banking is hidden away in a variety of sometimes unseen charges and, of course, in the general lack of interest we receive in return for lodging our hard-earned cash with the banks.

TSB is one of the clear winners when it comes to switching, with some 12,000 new accounts coming through its doors every day. The latest figures on who is switching from where to where date back to the third quarter of last year (commercially sensitive stuff, don’t you know?).

At that stage, Santander was easily the leader, gaining 51,000 switched accounts. The big losers were the combined RBS and NatWest, which lost 27,000, and Barclays, down more than 25,000. Lloyds was an oddity, with 10,000 people switching out but 11,000 switching into its Halifax subsidiary. It is also peculiar that three of the biggest challenger banks — Handelsbanken, Metro Bank and Virgin Money — do not contribute to the data. Surely they are among those who have the most to gain from switching?

The Competition and Markets Authority is about to enter the 36th month of its investigation into retail banking. It has extended its probe until August, giving some hope it will do more to kick the big five banks, who share 85% of the market, than originally expected.

In particular, the CMA should look hard at making overdrafts switchable. Its preliminary report found that while those in credit could save £70 a year by switching current account, people who regularly have an overdraft could save £140 and those with really big overdrafts could save £280.

But the bank-funded Current Account Switch Service doesn’t actually let you switch your overdraft. So you have to go about it yourself, and that inevitably leads to problems — and in many cases a refusal to accept your borrowings.

In fact, most people with overdrafts are jolly good business for banks. The type of person who goes slightly overdrawn every other month just before payday represents a very good credit risk and pays much more for their banking than the boring person with £20,000 in their current account.