LONDON, May 17 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest banks will haveto cap unauthorised overdraft fees and join a price-comparisonwebsite to give customers better service, Britain's competitionwatchdog said on Tuesday, following a 19-month investigation toreform the banking sector.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said themajority of customers did not know if they were getting goodvalue for money from their banks, with most staying with thesame lender for over a decade.
The measures proposed should help customers identify betterfinance deals and save about 1 billion pounds ($1.45billion)over five years, the CMA said.
"For too long, banks have been able to sit back and not workhard enough for their personal and small business customers,"Alasdair Smith, Chair of the Retail Banking Investigation saidin the report.
Regulators and lawmakers are keen to increase competition ina sector dominated by the country's biggest four lenders --Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland,Barclays and HSBC -- which control more thanthree-quarters of current accounts and provide nine out of 10business loans.
The CMA has so far decided against more radical measuressuch as ordering a break-up of the largest players, because itsaid it would not address "fundamental competition problems".
Stakeholders have until June 22 to submit feedback on themeasures before a final report is published in July or August.
A slew of new and niche banks are bidding to poach marketshare from the blue-chip lenders, including Secure Trust, Virgin Money, Aldermore, Shawbrook and Metro Bank.($1 = 0.6908 pounds) (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill and Huw Jones, editing by SineadCruise)