Financial Comparison Websites in the UK

There are many financial websites out here in the ether to choose from, but choose wisely as most of them do not have your best interests at heart. You only have to look at the Google Ads that appear on our Lens to get an idea of how badly these companies want you.

(Just so as our readers know.....if you want to have a Squidoo Lens you have to take the Google Ads, it is the law. It helps pay for all of this. I suppose sometimes you have to drink with the devil.)

There are the consumer finance websites out here that tease you for your customer details, only to sell them as a sales lead to whoever. In fact there is one very big one that we could name and shame but we shall refrain at the moment.

Then we have the comparison sites that present the products they get paid for promoting in psuedo best buy tables. On the larger more reputable websites they still do this but if you know what you are doing, eventually you can find what you are looking for.

Finally, we have the worst of all.......the websites that present, out of date, inaccurate and misleading information and believe me there are loads. One of them even has an Affiliate Marketing Programme that lets other people set up carbon copies of their site. All with a view to either selling your personal information as a lead or making a commission from the provider they are promoting in their rather spurious best buy tables.

Feel free to browse our blog or use the discount codes on www.thebestbestbuys.com but what would be really useful is for you could spread the word about, The Best Best Buys.

If you are in the unfortunate position where you have to transfer the balance of one credit card onto another credit card there are a few things you need to be aware of:

1) There will be a fee of about 3% based on the balance you are transferring

2) How long is the deal for? Is it a date or a set period of months?

3) How high is the interest rate (APR) when the deal is over?

4) If you miss one monthly minimum payment the deal may be void

5) Don't use the old credit card just because you can, REMEMBER, if you cannot be trusted: CUT IT UP!

Credit cards were not designed for long term borrowing but many people find themselves in the situation where they carry credit card debt round for years hardly making a dent in the balance.

They can often end up being the most expensive way to borrow money.

When we set up www.thebestbestbuys.com our business model was about making revenues from the discount codes featured on the site. However, when we speak to people about using codes it is a familiar story, they have tried to use them before but got bored and confused trying to track down valid discount codes from the better known websites.

That is why we have organised the discount codes the way we have, you click on a category and all the companies we know of are listed below with their valid date for all to see. We do not involve ourselves in click to reveal or any other such nonsense. So far we have had really positive feedback about the layout of the page and the discount codes we carry.

You have to be prepared to dig around a bit but it is worth it, money off or free delivery can save you a good few pennies. The money you save could be put into a savings account or you could pay off a bit more of your credit card balance. Go on, take charge of your money, every penny should be a prisoner.

There is a lot of truth in the old saying, "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves".

Here is an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 10th October 2009:

Kara Gemmell reported:
An investigation of comparison websites by Your Money reveals there can be more than 50 per cent between the cheapest and the most expensive "best buy" energy deals.

"The banner at the top of the webpage read: "Accreditted by Consumer Focus, which means that our prices are the same as other comparison websites."

But when I went shopping for a cheaper energy tariff, that didn't appear to be the case at all.

In a bid to reduce my energy bills this winter, I visited four leading comparison websites, Confused, uSwitch, GoCompare and Moneysupermarketand was shocked to find different results from each."

All four of the aforementioned comparison websites are accredited by the Consumer Focus Confidence Group (it actually sounds made up) which in theory means each of the sites should return similar results. Turns out they all calculate things slightly differently and you need to put in your exact energy consumption by units in some cases.

Sounds like a fair bit of flannel to me, surely if you are putting in similar data to similar websites the results should not differ by a huge amount but in this case the highest quote was £680 and the lowest was £431 a huge difference of £249.

But I have saved the best till last, the most expensive quote which was provided by uSwitch was actually more expensive than the customer pays at the moment. I can only assume the journalist decided to go with Confused.

The lesson to be learned here is that no matter if you are using a financial comparisons website or one that deals with utilities you should always use at least two or three different websites to check your findings.

The best unsecured personal loan deals are available through, Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys. The grocery multiples that branched out into financial services some years ago have been dominating the best buy tables for over 12 months.

There is only one bank that is contesting this space in the market, The Cooperative Bank through its brand, mypersonalloan.com has also been an everpresent in the charts for loans of £5,000 over 3 years and £10,000 over 5 years.

With renewed interest in this market I suspect a number of banks to start offering more attractive deals than they have of late. That said there has been a trend of late amongst lenders, namely RBS, Lloyds and Nationwide to reserve their best rates for existing customers.

In recent weeks the UK mortgage market has seen a growing number of lenders release mortgages with Loan to Value ratios of 90%. Admitedly they do not have the best interest rates but it shows a willingness on the part of the lenders to start lending in an area of the market which was felt to be a bit too risky for the last 18 months.

Also we have seen major lenders such as the Nationwide reduce their interest rates on fixed rate mortgages and First Direct (part of HSBC) dropping their rates on Tracker Mortgages. The mortgage best buy tables in the press and on the internet have also seen products with LTVs of 80% return.

This all points to the fact that lenders have more liquidity and are willing to go after customers with smaller deposits. A sure sign that competition is finally returning to the UK Mortgage Market.

So we were all brought up to put money away for a rainy day but many people insist on carrying on saving while they carry around debt. This is counter productive as any gains you make from squirreling your hard earned cash away is negated by the fact you are paying a higher rate of interest on the money you owe.

At present the average savings account in the UK pays 0.5% interest even the Instant Access Savings Accounts that feature in the best buy tables only offer between 2.65% and 3.15%. To put this into perspective the average rate of interest charged by a credit card is above 19% per annum and an unsecured personal loan carries an average interest rate of approximately 10.5%.

So if you are in the position of having any debt in the form of either a loan or a credit card balance you should pay that off without delay. There is no point in saving at 3.15% when you are shelling out 10% on a loan or 19% on a credit card balance. Once you have paid off all your debt you can start to save again, safe in the knowledge that it is not costing you money to do so.

If you are in the fortunate position of having no debt other than your mortgage it is worth considering over paying you mortgage rather than putting your money into a savings account. Not all mortgages allow you to "overpay", if that is the case then the very least you can do is make sure you have moved your savings to the account which is paying the best rate of interest.

Remember, the majority of savings account operate a variable rate of interest and often reduce over time. When you deposited the cash, you may have received a bonus but these normally only last for the first 12 months of the account.

It pays to review your savings every year to make sure you are not missing out....go on become a RATE TART!