The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a campaign to highlight the benefits of switching savings accounts.
This campaign has been launched during a time of higher-than-usual interest rates in the UK.
The City regulator campaign encourages consumers to shop around for a better savings rate.
Just over half (52%) of savers said they had switched or were considering switching their savings account.
The FCA’s £600,000 campaign will run across radio, digital audio and social media and “prompt consumers to review their savings by highlighting how quickly they can find a better rate”.
Additionally, consumers will be able to use a dedicated page on the FCA website to calculate how much they could earn from a higher paying savings account.
FCA executive director of consumers and competition Sheldon Mills said: “We know that people can be put off switching for a variety of reasons, but they could be making their money work harder.
“There are some great rates out there and it could take as little as five minutes to find a better deal.”
However, separate research from Hargreaves Lansdown found that 37% of people have not switched for the past five years and over a quarter (27%) have never switched their savings.
Just under half (49%) of people had no plans ever to switch.
Hargreaves Lansdown said: “There’s an awful lot of work to do to persuade people to become savings switchers.”
Hargreaves Lansdown head of active savings Mark Hicks added: “Anything the FCA can to persuade people to switch for a better savings deal has to be positive. However, it’s going to take a serious and sustained effort to shift people from the easy access accounts of high-street banks, where an awful lot of cash is stuck.
“Savings rates are higher now than they have been for more than a decade. Despite falling back slightly from peak rates, there are plenty of fixed and easy access rates of over 5%. These are the kinds of rates savers wouldn’t have believed possible back in the doldrums of the pandemic. And yet, an awful lot of people have been reluctant to move their money.”
The challenges the FCA may face in persuading people to switch accounts, according to Hargreaves Lansdown, is that 28% said they were already getting the best rate. Another quarter (27%) decided not to switch as they trusted their bank, 17% did not want the hassle, and 16% did not believe it was worth it.
The FCA obtained these results from YouGov, which asked 1,519 savers in November 2023.
It’s a rather monumental regulatory failure that the FCA hasn’t for years been running a campaign across radio, digital audio and social media warning consumers in the strongest possible terms of the dangers of engaging with cold callers, particularly those whom they never get to meet face to face at an established business premises, trying to persuade them to transfer the value of their DB Pension benefits to a SIPP.