So what will the OFT ACTUALLY be deciding on now?

[Shazzaw]

Firstly, apologies for my ignorance in possibly asking a daft'ish question!

OK, great news I understand last week and from what I can gather the OFT (pending hopefully an unsuccessful further appeal from the Banks) have now been given the green light to begin (continue) their investigation into bank charges which they aim to conclude by the end of the year.

However, my question is what are we expecting the OFT to announce once their investigation is complete? Just that they believe the charges to be unfair or to come to a figure of what they believe a fair charge to be?

I only ask as I cannot understand how the OFT can come to a figure without having open access to the banks accounts / internal records / etc;

Could anyone poss advise what we are hopefully expecting from the OFT at the end of their investigation.

Many thanks as ever and to all those in the know and thanks so much for being the only site out there that is able to keep us fully informed.

shazzaw

[Amethyst]

Re: So what will the OFT ACTUALLY be deciding on now?

Hi Shazzaw, i love your questions I can never answer them lol.

As far as i am aware they will continue their investigation into the fairness of the terms which result in the charges. If the OFT deem them unfair (which they already have done in their initial investigation) then I presume they will have to go back to court for a ruling. The OFT have no retrospective powers so they can only get undertakings from the banks to charge up to a certain level or in a certain way in future. However if they are deemed unfair then it means the terms were invalid in the contracts which then means the charges were unlawful and thus a system (by FSA I would guess) will have to be put in place for people to reclaim what they have paid out.

Lots of people think they will simply annoucne a figure such as they did in the Credit Card Default charges thing in Apr 06 - however the whole way through this they have said they won't be doing that.

Doesnt help much does it lol...someone else should be able to answer a lot better.

[EXC]

Re: So what will the OFT ACTUALLY be deciding on now?

Too add to that the OFT have 2 things running in tandem: The PCA Market Study which is looking at the whole current account market and the UTCCR investigation which includes the test case litigation.

The PCA Market Study is due first - could be anytime in the next few weeks/months but won't touch on the fairness issue.

Then, ss we wait for the litigation to run it's course, the UTCCR investigation itself will hopefully announce the charges are unfair later this year. In order to rule them unfair it's difficult to see how they could rule them unfair unless they knew the charge costs and I would imagine that's what they're looking at now.