Low levels of consumer switching characterise many essential services markets (think current accounts or energy suppliers) and mean that competition alone isn’t sufficient to drive improvements. Two new reports from Consumer Futures have tackled this issue head on, introducing the concept of a new form of intermediary.
Next Generation Intermediaries (NGIs) are services that enable consumers to get better outcomes from complex markets by doing very little themselves – effectively outsourcing engagement to a new kind of intermediary service that works on their behalf. They would empower any consumer who lacks the time or inclination to trawl around for a better energy, financial services, or mobile phone package to instruct the intermediary find the offer that best meets the consumer’s declared criteria, and then to instigate and oversee the switch for them.
Let’s call it ‘do it for me’. It envisages a world where any consumer who lacks the time or inclination to trawl around for a better energy, financial services, or mobile phone package can instruct a new kind of intermediary service to ‘do it for me’. What’s more, once that service identifies the offer that best meets a consumer’s declared criteria, the consumer can again say ‘do it for me’ and have the service instigate and oversee the switch to the provider of that offer. And the consumer can then keep saying ‘do it for me’ in relation to related services that require decision support.
This paper provides an overview of the Next Generation Intermediary (NGI) concept – outlining the potential that NGI type services offer and the qualities that set them apart from established intermediary services. It provides an overview of how NGIs would work in practice, the technological trends that make this kind of approach possible now, and some thoughts on who might come to offer NGI services.
As of 2nd Jan Ofgem has banned suppliers from offering complex tariffs. The reforms also mean that once a consumer has decided how they want to pay for energy they will have just four core tariffs to choose from for gas and four for electricity, from each supplier. Read more from Ofgem 
T-Mobile’s service links a pre-paid Visa card to an app on the phone. Cards can be used at ATMs, in shops and to pay bills, and the app can be used to keep track of transactions and balances. Millions of Americans don’t have traditional bank accounts and T-Mobile claim that this service may provide a cheaper alternative to cheque-cashing services and payday lenders. Pre-paid cards are growing in popularity in the US. Read more 
Ofcom has published a guide which offers advice to people with learning difficulties on how to get the most out of their mobile phone and on how much it could cost. It gives information on:
A briefing called Ethnicity and deprivation in England was published in December 2013 by the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) and others as part of a series The Dynamics of Diversity: evidence from the 2011 Census. It examines how likely ethnic minorities are to live in deprived neighbourhoods.
In November National Energy Action published an action guide aimed to assist community groups, local authority officers, advice workers, MPs, and anyone who may come into contact with those struggling to heat their homes affordably. 
With evidence from five EU countries (including the UK), this paper examines whether there is a digital divide in the use of the internet in general and for specific purposes (leisure, improving human capital and obtaining goods and services).