FCA wants to ease bank account switching

By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - Allowing customers to take their bank account number with them would encourage more Britons to switch to a rival lender, Britain's financial regulator said on Thursday. Such flexibility has long been a feature of the mobile phone market where customers keep the same telephone number when they shop around between rival providers. Banks have said so called account number "portability" would be costly but the idea now has the support of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). "The FCA found that being able to keep bank account details increases consumer confidence in the bank account switching process," it said in a statement.