Supervisor of Banks Yair Avidan:
“The reform regarding interbank mobility is a pro-consumer process that was formulated with the view that the customer is at the center, and it is revolutionary news for the general public. Since the system was launched, about 60,000 customers have used it, and about 40,000 have switched banks. This means that tens of thousands of customers have expressed trust in the system, and hundreds of thousands of transactions have been moved from one account to another through the system.
“The challenge facing the banking system and MASAV was to create a holistic solution for transferring customers’ financial activity under existing operational, contractual, and technological restrictions, all within seven business days and while maintaining customers’ rights. The uniqueness of this project was reflected not only in how it dealt with these challenges, partly by integrating a unique “follow me” service with the aim of enabling continuity of the customer’s regular activity, but also in its importance to competition in the Israeli banking system, the number of participants in the system, and the volume of resources invested in it.
“The reform helps customers improve the terms of their account management and switch banks through a convenient, transparent, and friendly user experience. I would like to emphasize that strengthening the customer’s power and increasing competition between the banks are not necessarily reflected in increasing the rate of mobility between banks, since just giving customers a real choice that is easy to implement is sometimes enough to increase the customer’s power and improve competition. The system is another element in seeing the customer as the center and giving him the power, further to other reforms also being advanced by the Bank of Israel.”
Director of the Payment Systems Department Oded Salomy:
“The Bank of Israel has recently been leading a significant change in the world of payments in Israel, and is enabling the payments market to move toward progress and innovation, thereby creating an environment that supports financial competition.
“Regarding checks as well, we have led a process that is pioneering on a global level. A customer who moves her account from one bank to another can now use the checkbook issued by the old bank. With one-click mobility, checks are presented directly to the account at the new bank, easily and efficiently.
“This process joins a variety of other steps we are advancing in the area of adapting checks to the digital era: cellular deposits, making checks a digital means of payment, and more.”