This from the “Fool” requires no further explanation. The opportunities for Banks to differentiate, and become customer centric are exponential! This is not restricted to UK Banks.
- Banking is bad for businesses Although the Competition Commission ruled in 2002 that banks were massively overcharging small businesses for everyday banking …
- 2. Blinding us with brands As I explained in Do You Know Who You’re Dealing With?,.. For example, credit cards from Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Virgin Money are all, in fact, issued by giant US bank MBNA…
- Delayed cheques and slow payments Other countries have same-day cheque clearing, so why don’t we here in the UK? Alas, if you deposit a cheque on, say, a Monday, you won’t earn interest on it until Wednesday at the earliest, when it is ‘cleared for value’ …
- Extortionate fees for instant cash transfers If you need to transfer money between two accounts on the same day, …
- Hiding information in the small print … Banks love to hide away their horrors, so it pays to read through the small print. …
- Holiday-money horrors In Get More Currency For Your Cash,…
- Plugging packaged current accounts …. packaged current account which offers ‘free’ added services of dubious value.
- Sending money abroad is seriously expensive, thanks to sky-high transmission fees and currency commissions and poor exchange rates.
Source: Banks Behaving Badly! – 10/10/2006 – The Motley Fool UK
Technorati tags: customer+value, customer+centric
Bankwatch 
It certainly is not restricted to the UK. An actuary recently went through a “disclosure” document (a PDS in Oz regulatory speak) just trying to work out the interest structure on an Australian credit card. When this defeated her, she called in a lawyer and an accountant. The three of them together could not work out how to calculate the interest – never mind the rest.
Brilliant example. I find this a continual battle between channel people seeking simplicity and clarity, and product people continually achieving complexity.