Bank switching: Nationwide & Lloyds the big winners as customers ditch Barclays

The latest current account switching figures reveal the banks most people are switching to – and those that are losing customers by the bucketload.

The number of customers ditching their existing bank in favour of a rival provider has fallen sharply in the last three months.

That’s according to the latest quarterly figures from the Current Account Switch Service (CASS).

It found that around 222,000 people moved their main current account between January and March 2025, notably lower than the 310,000 who did so in the previous quarter.

While it's interesting to see the latest switching trends overall from CASS, the really useful stats can be found by looking into the specific banks and building societies that gained and lost the most customers.

This gives us a clearer idea of which banks are winning and losing as a result of all this switching activity.

The data is provided by Pay UK, the retail payments authority.

As it takes a while to pull these together, the latest stats available are for the fourth quarter of 2024, running from October to December.

Here’s what these stats reveal.

The banks we are all switching to

Nationwide was the biggest winner for the second quarter running, with an impressive net gain of 51,254 customers.

This follows on from a gain of more than 22,000 between July and September, and a similar increase in the previous quarter.

So what's driving its ongoing strong performance?

A big factor is likely the positive publicity around its Fairer Share promotion, which sees the building society handing out cash bonuses to members as well as exclusive access to specific savings accounts: it handed £100 back to members last Summer and is expected to do the same again this year.

This helps explain the enduring popularity of the building society, but what ramped up its growth even further – more than twice as many people joined in the latest quarter – was the fact it also offered a juicy £175 cash to any new customers who switched their main current account.

In the past, factors like customer service or distance to the nearest branch might have been the main factors influencing switchers, but these days it's all about these joining incentives.

You'll regularly see companies soaring up the charts in any quarter when they have juicy bonuses on offer.

As a case in point, the second biggest winner over the quarter was Lloyds, which saw a five-fold increase in net new customers compared to the previous quarter after it offered a generous £200 switching bung.

Another point of interest in the latest bank switching stats is how few net 'winners' there were.

Usually, there's a pretty even split between the 20 banks big enough to feature in the CASS tables, with roughly half growing while the rest suffer a slump. 

This quarter, there were only five net winners and 15 net losers.

This suggests Nationwide and Lloyds were so successful, driven by their cash bonus offers, that most of their rivals were unable to prevent losing customers to them.

Remarkably, of the 228,000 total current account switches seen over the quarter, more than 160,000 involved moving from another bank to either Nationwide or Lloyds.  

Of all the banks to have achieved a net gain, these two accounted for more than 101,000 of the roughly 114,000 total customer growth.

You can see the full list of banks that managed to grow their net customer base in the table below.

The banks we're all joining

The worst-performing banks

Barclays was by far the biggest loser in the latest quarter, as its net current account customers plummeted more than 37,000. 

It had actually been the second strongest performer over the previous three months. 

This dramatic change in fortune is likely because it offered no new incentives in the latest quarter, having previously paid people £175 to join.

Halifax was the second-worst performer between October and December, losing more than 20,000 net customers. TSB fared only slightly better, losing almost 18,000.  

You can see a full breakdown of the biggest losers in the table below.

The banks we're ditching

Switching bonus requirements getting stricter

As mentioned earlier, it's clearly switching incentives that play the biggest role in the switching merry-go-round.

There is a sizeable number of savvy Brits who switch habitually to whichever brand has the biggest offer going.

The banks have responded to this trend by making it harder to qualify for these bungs in the hopes of deterring serial switchers looking to simply bag the bonus and run.

You'll regularly see requirements like setting up multiple Direct Debits, transferring money into the account and spending on the card in order to get the joining bonus.

It's worth keeping this in mind if you're thinking of taking advantage of one of these generous bungs.

Speaking of which, you can view our roundup of the best bonuses here.

At present, you can get up to £175 from First Direct and £150 from NatWest.

No doubt you'll be seeing all these brands soaring up the switching charts in future months.

Want more stories like this? Head over to the loveMONEY homepage, follow us on Twitter or Facebook or sign up for our newsletter and let us send the news to you!

Want more stories like this? Head over to the loveMONEY homepage, follow us on Twitter or Facebook or sign up for our newsletter and let us send the news to you!