Brussels, 30/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - There has been an improved performance across all consumer markets according to the 10th Consumer Markets Scoreboard. This improvement is particularly marked for goods markets, while services continue to be the main sources of dissatisfaction, with two weakest links being identified: banking services and energy. These are the main lessons to be drawn from the consumer markets scoreboard 2014. This is the second scoreboard of this kind to be published and was released by the European Commission on Monday 30 June.
The Consumer Markets Scoreboard tracks the performance of 52 consumer markets based on consumers' experiences in these areas and takes into account a number of specific criteria: trust in businesses; comparability of offers; problems and complaints and satisfaction with businesses; range of choices available to consumers; opportunities for changing tariffs and suppliers and price differences between countries. During his presentation of the scoreboard to the press, European Commissioner for Consumer Policy Neven Mimica said that the overall result is encouraging and, across the board, markets were improving. He highlighted that the positive trend had been continuing since 2010 but did vary from one market to another in sectors such as the second-hand car market and hotel services, for example. He announced the forthcoming launch of two detailed market research studies: one focusing on electricity retail prices for individual customers and the other on how best to ascertain the way in which consumers interpret the contractual conditions they sign up to.
The results of the scoreboard are as follows:
Goods markets are working considerably better than services markets, although the gap has been slowly narrowing. Compared with 2012, some of the worst performing markets, such as vehicle fuels and train services, have improved the most;
Banking services remain the most problematic sector, with the markets for investment products and mortgages at the bottom of the ranking and well below the average for the service sector. Ensuring that financial services are working to the benefit of consumers in the current economic climate is an essential component of EU consumer policy;
Telecoms markets score well below the average for trust, choice of providers and overall consumer satisfaction, and have the highest incidence of problems and complaints of all market clusters. On the plus side, the scores for comparability and ease of switching are above average and the switching rates are the highest for all the market clusters. In September 2013, the Commission adopted the Connected Continent package aimed at eliminating roaming charges by 2016 and improving consumers' choice of telecoms providers;
Public utilities, in particular electricity and gas, are also rated as below average by consumers. Despite recent improvements, utilities markets continue to score poorly in comparability of offers, choice of providers, ease of switching and actual switching. The Commission is working with key stakeholders to increase the transparency of energy offers and bills, ensure customers' access to their consumption data and facilitate switching;
Poor results for markets for second-hand cars and vehicle fuels continue to be marked with both well below average. An EU in-depth study into the market for vehicle fuels has just been finalised. Key findings from the vehicle fuels study reveal that fuel prices frequently fluctuate, even change several times a day in some countries. The study highlights in particular Austria, where all fuel retailers must notify their price changes, and the relevant law permits only one price increase a day. This has ensured better price transparency for consumers and has led to price reductions of up to 2.5 % for diesel and 3.6% for petrol. Commissioner Mimica provided assurances that they would attempt to promote good practices in these markets.
The 2014 consumer markets scoreboard was based on 720,000 consumer responses collected by the European Commission (DG SANCO) as part of an EU survey. (AN)