If you’ve bought flat pack furniture you will recognise its advantages. But it has its downsides too. It’s heavy and has instructions. They need reading. Assembly in the right order helps. The panels look similar but the holes are in different places. You end up doing the work. Personal finance is similar. Savings, loans and investments are on the web and you end up with the admin. The process is far from fool proof. Hit a problem when opening an account or accessing your money and trial and error won’t get you through. Why? Because there’s a still a lot of paperwork and manual processes. Talking to someone who can help is difficult. The customer ends up doing a lot of the work whilst banks keep costs down. For big firms these savings add up. No wonder we are all being pushed in the same direction. Whilst the Competition and Markets Authority has looked at current account switching anecdotal and personal experience tells me this is relatively straight forward. However if you want to open an account or just deal with your money the process is much harder. The flat pack approach to banking means much of the burden around regulation and security is passed back to the customer. With the inability to talk with anyone who can resolve things is it no wonder that the public is disengaged? Of course not. The benefits will continue to accrue in back books.