TSB pins hopes on end of Big Five stranglehold

TSB chief Paul Pester hopes the delay to the Competition and Markets Authority report into banking bodes well for his challenger bank.

“The Big Five still have a stranglehold with 85% of the market,” he said. “If a delay of three months means the CMA comes up with a result, it will be worth it.

“We want to see switching made much simpler including allowing people with overdrafts to use the switching service. Meanwhile, we must be the only service industry in this country that does not send its customers a bill at the end of every month. Charges need to be made much clearer.”

TSB, now owned by Spain’s Sabadell, saw first-quarter profits surge 75% to £59.9 million as it captured 7.1%, or 116,000, of the new and switched current accounts. That’s well above its own target of 6%. At present, it has a 4.5% share of the market with 4.8 million customers.

Savings rose by 8.4% to £26.8 billion and lending was up 28.3% to £27.4 billion.