GAZETTE NOTICE NO. 678

IT IS notified for general information of the public that pursuant to section 18(1) (a) the Competition Act, 2010, the Competition Authority intends to carry out the second phase of the market inquiry into the banking sector. A consultant has been identified to carry out the second phase of the inquiry. I. The Terms of Reference of the market inquiry shall be as follows— (1) Demand side analysis (a)understand and document the end-to-end banking customer journey and identify triggers that prompt the decision of customers to switch providers; (b)explore and establish if there are any barriers to bank customers switching providers, including, but not limited to, lack of awareness of alternatives, the ability to access and assess relevant information and eventually act on this information to switch, costs of switching, account closure practices and any behavioural biases that may lead to consumer inertia to switch; (c)determine how the barriers identified impact on market development and customer choice; (d)uncover the extent to which the barriers, if any, identified above relate to competition in the banking sector and the extent to which they could be addressed by regulatory action by the Authority and other government agencies; and (e)explore alternate consumer focused measures beyond the Authority's regulatory action that can address the switching barriers identified including strengthening consumer awareness and assess their potential impacts. (2) Price transparency (a)explore and document the evidence on any deficiencies that exist in disclosure and sales practices by provider segments including deficiencies that are as a result of not presenting product information in the way that consumers want; (b)identify how both transparency and suitability can be improved to address these issues including regulatory action by the Authority and other government agencies; and (c)assess the adequacy of disclosing P2P, bill pay and loan costs to consumers when transacting on digital channels. (3) Consumer protection (tl) identify tiny outstanding consumer protection concerns that arise as a result of the analysis undertaken under the demand side and price transparency analysis in (1) and (2) above; (b) assess the level and current practices around consumer control over their transactional data and how this is sold or accessed by third parties such as the usage of mobile credit data to score and award credit offers without consumer consent; (c)assess the level of equal compliance with Credit Bureau reporting by digital credit providers and if they report both positive and negative borrower data as required by law and if there exists disparate treatments that gives them anti- competitive advantage and inhibits consumers' ability to take advantage of their own data for financial access; and (d)assess if there exists restrictions on consumers' use of their own digital transactional data and provision of the same to third parties for commercial use. 2. In the performance of its functions, the Consultant — (a)shall hold such number of meetings in such places and at such times as it may, in consultation with the Authority, consider necessary for the proper discharge of its functions; (b)may use official reports of any previous investigations, policies and legislation relevant to this study; and (c)may receive views from members of the public and receive oral and written submissions from any person with relevant information. 3. Members of the public, with relevant information, may submit oral or written submissions to the Secretariat of the consultant within twenty one days of the publication of this notice. 4. The Secretariat of the Consultant shall be based at the Authority's offices located at Kenya Railways Staff Retirement Benefit Scheme Block "D", 1st Floor, Haile Selassie Avenue P.O. Box 36265-00200, Nairobi. E-mail info@cak.go.ke WANG'OMBE KARIUKI, Director-General, Competition Authority of Kenya.