Last checked at 
(Adds more detail)
LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - There is a case for intervening
in Britain's mortgage market to help customers switch to better
deals, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Tuesday.
"Based on our research, we believe there is a case for
intervening to help mortgage customers who do not switch. We
will issue a consultation paper on potential remedies later this
year," the FCA said in a statement on its website.
The watchdog said its research looking into why a minority
of mortgage holders don't switch showed that inactive borrowers
tend to be older and have slightly lower incomes than those that
switch.
They also tend to overestimate the difficulty in switching
home loans and underestimating the benefits of doing so, the
FCA's research said.
"In order to provide a clear benefit to switching and
overcome contentedness, we feel that an intervention that
provides non-switchers with an estimate from their current
lender of the amount they could save if they switched internally
would be the most effective solution," the research said.
"In order to address non-switchers’ overestimation of the
difficulties of switching, we believe that lenders could provide
an estimate of the amount of time it would take to switch
internally."
A broader mortgages market study by the FCA in March last
year found that up to 800,000 consumers are missing out on an
average of 1,000 pounds a year by not changing deals.
(Reporting by Huw Jones;
Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
