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Do you know about switching?

Are you happy with the bank in which you have your account? If not, do not despair: changing or switching banks will become an easy matter from as early as March of this year. Owing to an amendment to the Act on Payment Services, implementing Directive 2014/92/EU, bank fees charged by individual banks for their services will become much more transparent: before concluding a contract with a bank, a document containing information about the fees charged for payment account services will have to be provided to potential clients. The amendment also stipulates conditions for the operation of comparison websites offering impartial fee information.

Switching, i.e. transferring a payment account, will be carried out via a prescribed form provided to the client by the bank the client wants to transfer its account to. Simultaneously, the law explicitly prescribes the tasks for the existing and target banks and related deadlines. Based on information stated in the prescribed form, the target bank will arrange everything for the client, including the transfer of the client’s standing orders and direct debits. Clients will thus be certain that no administrative obstructions await them when switching banks. Only a reasonable fee, corresponding to the actual transfer costs, will be charged by banks for switching. However, banks will not be obligated to transfer accounts maintained in a different currency than the target account.

Banks will further be required to provide information about bank account maintenance fees sufficiently in advance before concluding a contract. This information must be provided free of charge in a separate document to all who ask for it. In addition, banks must disclose fee information on their websites and make it available at all their branches. This is to provide payment account users’ with sufficient information and protection.

New rules will also apply to comparison websites for bank maintenance fees. Operators will have to ensure equal treatment of all banks, thus making comparisons based on clear and impartial criteria. Information disclosed on such websites will have to be true, specific and comprehensible, requiring regular updates. To ensure effective supervision, operators will have to notify the Czech Trade Inspection Authority and the Czech National Bank about their plans to operate a comparison website before commencing operations. They will also have to implement appropriate procedures to deal with any possible complaints about the inaccuracy of comparison results.