Working with five national authorities, the EBA carried out mystery shops for personal loans and payment accounts at 37 financial institutions on 340 occasions, of which 250 were carried out on-site and 90 online. The exercise confirmed that mystery shopping is a tool that adds "immense value", complementing other more conventional approaches by delivering first-hand information about, and insight into, the conduct of firms towards costumers, says the EBA. The exercise revealed that the conduct of some firms is inadequate and needs to improve, says the watchdog. For instance, some did not provide the required pre-contractual information to consumers, and automatically increased the total amount of the credit to include the bank fees without collecting explicit consent. Read the full report:

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