The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has decided to refer the market for personal current account banking services in Northern Ireland to the Competition Commission (CC) for further investigation, according to a government news network.
The CC is inviting evidence from all interested parties. This follows a ‘super complaint,’ in conjunction with the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, and an initial OFT study into the sector. The CC will now carry out its own comprehensive inquiry, to see if any features of this market distort, restrict or prevent competition and if so, what action might be taken to remedy these.
The CC is in the process of appointing members to its inquiry group and will then publish a draft timetable for the inquiry. The first task for the group will be to gather evidence by contacting all involved parties and by advertising for submissions from any other interested groups or individuals.
The CC would like to hear from all interested parties, in writing, by June 24, 2005.