‘It’s a white-knuckle ride’: UK bank customer reveals how switching accounts is far from simple

Customers can move their current accounts usually within about seven days. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

When Gemma Fisher* was told that her current account with Intelligent Finance was shutting, she took comfort in the belief that switching to another provider would take only a week. But even with two months’ notice before closure, this was a mistake.

“I took my foot off the pedal – that was my big mistake. Because, of course, it doesn’t just take seven days to switch. It is actually a significantly complicated process if you don’t have an exact matching account to switch to,” she says.