More Britons move banks as new switching rules have impact

* 17 pct rise in switching year-on-year in fourth quarter

* New rules ensure customers can move lender in 7 days

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - New rules making it easier forBritons to switch banks resulted in a 17 percent rise in thenumber of customers moving accounts in the fourth quarter of2013 compared with the same period the year before, the PaymentsCouncil said on Thursday.

The new rules, introduced last September, ensure customerscan switch accounts within seven days with all outgoing andincoming payments automatically transferred.

They are part of a range of measures designed to break thedominance of Britain's four biggest banks - Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays andHSBC - which between them control three-quarters of UKretail accounts.

Lawmakers and regulators believe a lack of choice has been afactor behind scandals such as the mis-selling of loan insuranceand complex interest rate hedging products, which have costbanks over 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) in compensation.

The Payments Council said banks had met the seven-daydeadline in 99.6 percent of cases, with 306,240 switchescompleted. A survey by the body, which has responsibility forensuring payment services work in the UK, showed about six outof ten people were aware of the service.

"More than 300,000 switches in three months is anencouraging start and we hope this will be further boosted bythe second wave of our national advertising campaign that kickedoff this January," said the Payments Council's Chief ExecutiveAdrian Kamellard.

The increase was more marked in December, when there was a54 percent rise in customers moving accounts.

Britain's opposition Labour Party considers the government'sefforts to heighten competition among banks to be inadequate andits leader Ed Miliband is expected to call for a cap to beintroduced on the market share of individual banks in a keynotespeech on Friday.