{"id":87454,"date":"2017-12-19T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=014c128b980594221af3699186ba1909"},"modified":"2017-12-19T12:30:14","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:30:14","slug":"news-story-over-900000-more-customers-open-fee-free-basic-bank-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=87454","title":{"rendered":"News story: Over 900,000 more customers open fee-free basic bank accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Over 900,000 new fee-free basic bank accounts were opened between July 2016 and June 2017, taking<br \/>\nthe total number of fee-free accounts open to nearly 5 million, according to the government\u2019s basic<br \/>\nbank account report published today.<\/p>\n<p>Basic bank accounts have been available in the UK for over a decade, but since September 2016 the<br \/>\nUK\u2019s nine largest banks have been legally required to offer fee-free basic bank accounts, designed to<br \/>\nimprove financial inclusion for those who don\u2019t have a current account or who might struggle to open<br \/>\na standard account.<\/p>\n<p>Other findings in this year\u2019s report include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>there are just under 8 million basic bank accounts open in the UK<\/li>\n<li>for the second year running, Nationwide and Lloyds Banking Group opened the most fee-free<br \/>\nbasic bank accounts between July 2016 and June 2017<\/li>\n<li>Nationwide, Clydesdale Yorkshire Banking Group, and Co-op have a larger market share of<br \/>\nbasic bank accounts than personal current accounts<\/li>\n<li>Lloyds Banking Group accounts for almost half of the basic bank account market<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Stephen Barclay, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Making sure that everyone has access to the financial services that they need is at the heart of our<br \/>\nplan to build a fairer society and an economy that is fit for the future. The government has legislated<br \/>\nto make sure fee-free basic bank accounts are available to those who need them and I am pleased to<br \/>\nsee that so many people &#8211; who might have previously been at risk of running up debt through bank<br \/>\ncharges &#8211; have access to a completely free account. It is important for a fair economy that banks<br \/>\ncontinue to help all their customers to manage their finances confidently and responsibly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"call-to-action\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/basic-bank-accounts\">Read the report here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 900,000 new fee-free basic bank accounts were opened between July 2016 &#8211; June 2017, taking the total number of fee-free accounts open to nearly 5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}