Dear Listener

Do you remember the Listening Bank? That was the 1970s slogan devised by adverting agency Allen, Brady & Marsh for Midland Bank, once the largest deposit bank in the world and now part of the global giant HSBC. I ask because on Tuesday I was hosting a meeting of the Independent Commission on Banking, with more than 150 members of the public. And I dubbed it the Listening Banking Commission as 18 tables of 8 or more people discussed what they wanted from banks – and Banking Commission chairman Sir John Vickers listened.

It is one of several such meetings being held between the publication last April of his Interim Report and the final report later this year. We already know he will recommend that Lloyds Banking Group sells ‘substantially more’ than the 600 branches it has already been ordered to get rid of following the rather forced merger with Halifax Bank of Scotland and the state aid that followed (we own 43% of LBG). But we still don’t know how many is ‘substantially’. And he wants the retail part of banking separated from the riskier investment side by what he calls a ‘firewall’.

But Tuesday evening was more about micro than macro. What did customers see as barriers to moving a current account from one bank to another? What would increase competition between the banks? And how did fifteen well known bank (and building society) brands fit on a scale of less to more traditional? (Oddly HSBC was ‘more’ and its subsidiary First Direct was ‘less’)

In a lively feedback discussion, tables spontaneously told Sir John, Neville Richardson, Chief Executive of Cooperative Financial Services, and Peter Vicary-Smith, Chief Executive of the consumer organisation Which?, what they thought.

Notetakers and facilitators on every table were provided by Which?, the organisers. The results will be sent to the Independent Commission on Banking to inform its final report due in September.

Read more about the meeting http://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/05/customers-tell-banks-they-must-do-better-254465/ and the Commission http://bankingcommission.independent.gov.uk/

***IN MONEY BOX THIS WEEK***

What should you do if your employer offers you money to leave your final salary pension scheme? Probably just say no. We ask the Pensions Minister if he will ban these incentives to do the wrong thing.

Have you jumped through the five ring circus to get your Olympic tickets? Blue: March – get a Visa card. Yellow: April – enter the lottery. Black: May – keep enough money in your account. Green: June – find out which events you will see. Red: May/June 2012 – find out where your seats are. We look at the problems and reveal another way…

If an elderly relative is in a care home the NHS might pay the whole cost without a means-test. But how easy is it to get the NHS to cough up? And is it worth paying £1000 to find out if you might – and more still if you actually do?

The ‘spread’ is the difference between the price you pay for foreign currency and the price you can sell it back for. And that margin can be very wide. We get out our spreadsheet and reveal the expensive truth of the foreign currency merchants.

Four items so far which is comfy. But will a fifth gain admittance to our 24 minute share of Radio 4 airtime? Find out by listening on Saturday just after noon or the repeat on Sunday at 9pm or any time to the podcast www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox. There you can still download the special 30 April programme on the death of final salary pension schemes. Check out our website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox to follow links, download transcripts, send us stories or ideas you want us to look into and Have Your Say on reclaiming care home fees.

This newsletter is available at bbc.co.uk/moneybox/newsletter around the time it hits your inbox (tell your friends who don’t subscribe) and you can join more than 7100 others who enjoy my random but timely thoughts on money and a few other things whenever I’m awake at  twitter.com/paullewismoney.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the trail for the programme on BBC1 Breakfast just after 0845. And I am back on breakfast on Thursday around 0640 and around 0820 (though those times are very subject to change) with another story and answering emails from viewers.

e-mail Paul Lewis