On 4 December 2019, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced its final decision to vary the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017 (the Order) and remove Part 6 of the Order relating to overdraft alerts. It has also published the Variation Order and Explanatory Note and a Notice of Variation.

The CMA has concluded that the introduction of the new FCA rules on consumer overdrafts starting from 18 December 2019 represents a change of circumstance relevant to the Order. In the absence of a review of the Order, the introduction of the new FCA Rules would result in firms facing a duplication in regulatory requirements imposed upon them. This could result in confusion among providers and would impose unnecessary costs of compliance with two potentially conflicting regulatory regimes. It may also cause confusion among consumers. In light of this, the CMA has decided to vary the Order to avoid such duplication by removing Part 6.

To ensure there are no regulatory gaps in the monitoring and compliance with Part 6 of the Order, the CMA requests personal current account providers to submit one final compliance report to the CMA in 2020.