Barclays has just written to 11 million current account customers to advise about what it calls “improvements” to their current account terms. There's just one problem. For the majority of customers, there is no improvement. Indeed, they are going to be worse off.

Barclays is to be applauded for one change: introducing measures so that account holders are not hammered with complex, opaque and excessive charges when they borrow beyond their authorised overdraft limits.

But the quid pro quo is that the bank is scrapping interest on balances in credit and sharply increasing the interest rate on authorised overdrafts. Both the adverse changes were contained in the original bank announcement to reporters last month, but neither was mentioned in the lengthy letter and no fewer than three accompanying leaflets setting out the changes to customers (of whom I am one). That information was separately contained in press advertisements or in statements.

Barclays is right to address the cross-subsidy which means the 80 per cent of customers who keep within their limits are cross-subsidised by the 20percent who don't. Other banks are likely to follow its pioneering move. But it is wrong to try to bamboozle the majority of its customers into believing they will be better off. They will not.

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