Savers Miss out as Australian Banks Exploit ‘Consumer Inertia’

Switching bank accounts and updating payment details is an inconvenience the consumer watchdog wants streamlined to stoke competition in the retail deposit market. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said savers could be earning more money if it weren’t for barriers preventing bank customers from searching for a better deal. Treasurer Jim Chalmers asked the ACCC to look into the behaviour of banks earlier this year following concerns interest rate increases across deposit products were ad hoc and conditional. The consumer watchdog found evidence of banks employing pricing strategies that took advantage of “consumer inertia and other biases to reduce the overall cost of their deposit funding.”...