That sets it apart from the basic current accounts which the high street banks offer.
BBC: NEWS | Programmes | Moneybox | Bank current accounts challenge
The Commission noted that personal current accounts (PCAs) were the core product in personal banking.
Instead, it wants banks to come forward with ideas for making current accounts more transparent.
Telling current accounts to wait until others are taken care of is another form of discriminatory lending.
If figures were realistically presented, I think they'd show that America has usually run a current accounts deficit.
This explains why many economists have focused on the role played by current accounts in resolving the euro crisis.
Credit unions have started offering fully functioning current accounts to their members after one successful pilot attracted 1000 customers.
BBC: NEWS | Programmes | Moneybox | Bank current accounts challenge
Current accounts were a bigger source of income than mortgage lending (19%), credit cards (13%) and savings accounts (17%).
One of our companies has been banking with LAIKI (Cyprus Popular Bank) and we have had current accounts with the bank.
This morning we were notified by our bank that our CURRENT accounts have been also frozen and will be subject to a haircut.
You can add to that competition authorities and regulators bearing down on banks' control of the market in personal current accounts and insurance.
These credit unions aim to increase the number of financial services available, introducing more current accounts, budgeting accounts, and cash Individual Savings Accounts (Isas).
Although Britain's system of free current accounts for customers who keep them in credit has long been popular, it comes at a hefty price.
High bank reserve requirements of as much as 20% for timed deposits and 12% for current accounts keep banks from lending out too much money.
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Others are uncomfortable with the overdraft privileges on standard current accounts.
The government has said it will impose controls on charges for current accounts, following the publication a report into small business banking from the Competition Commission.
In response to rate cuts early in July, European banks have mainly shifted the money from the deposit facility to the current accounts, defeating the desired effect.
The result is that demand for pesos is rising, so much so that restrictions on frozen current accounts were lifted in December and those on time deposits were loosened.
Ministers have also unveiled measures to increase competition in the banking sector, including enabling customers to switch current accounts within a week, but critics say this does not go far enough.
These will give information on interest rates and charges, which will make it easier for customers to compare their banks' deals on current accounts, personal loans and credit cards with its competitors.
Common to all hopeful theories about the mass affluent is the belief that they want to take their money out of low-yielding current accounts and put it into shares and mutual funds.
RBS, which is 83% owned by taxpayers, estimates that it provided a staggering 46% of all lending to SMEs last year, which is way above its 30% share of small business current accounts.
Having banks inside the stores should help them attract business, in areas such as current accounts, where consumers have traditionally been less fickle than they are with savings accounts, insurance or credit cards.
In May, Nationwide unveiled plans to move into the small business market, saying it already had enough branches to have a serious impact across the UK, combined with long experience of operating current accounts.
The competition is pushing up the rates offered on deposits (some online banks are paying as much as 6% on current accounts) and pushing down commissions on mutual-fund transactions, option trades and other deals.
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Regulators are also trying to write the final rules that will limit how much banks may charge when retailers swipe debit cards, as well as restricting banks' ability to levy overdraft and other fees on current accounts.
In the U.K., HSBC and Islamic Bank of Britain both offer Islamic current accounts and mortgages aimed at Britain's 2 million Muslims, many of whom do not use established banking services because they are in conflict with Sharia.
He said that free current accounts provided a barrier to entry into the UK retail banking sector because this core product "is usually given away for free", prompting banks to try to make profits by pushing other products.
For consumers, the biggest cost arises from the paltry rates of interest that banks pay on balances held in current accounts, usually less than 0.5%, which compares with rates of 5% or 6% now available on savings accounts.
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