Latest NewsMortgage Hunters Swamp Interest Rate Comparison WebsitesMonday, 17 April 2017

Financial comparison sites say they've noticed a significant jump in traffic to their sites in the last month.

The increase has been attributed to the big four banks rising their interest rates by almost double that of the RBA.

One financial comparison site said it had noticed an 80 per cent jump in traffic in the last month after the four major banks lifted their interest rates by almost double that of the RBA.

Mozo, a financial comparison site run by the former managing director of Virgin Money, Rohan Gamble, has been operating for the last two years, comparing financial products in Australia.

It has a database of all financial products in the market and presents to users, in the form of summary tables, interest rates, which, Mr Gamble said, helps Australians get a better deal.

He told this website that he had seen an 80 per cent jump in traffic in the last month - without changing the way the Mozo site operated - and attributed its growth to the big four banks raising their interest rates higher than that of the RBA.

‘‘I think it’s fair to say that the RBA - and the big four that followed them - have really given us the impetus of growth in the last month,’’ Mr Gamble said. ‘‘We basically have seen about an 80 per cent increase in traffic and performance on basically doing the same thing before the RBA [lifted interest rates].

He said that it was ‘‘pretty indicative’’ that people were ‘‘getting off their backsides and actually doing something about [the interest rate rise] at least at this early stage’’.

The Mozo site makes money by getting commission from financial instructions for leads and usually gets ‘‘a couple 100,000 visitors a month’’, according to Mr Gamble, and results displayed are not influenced by which financial institutions pay more for leads.

He said it was similar to websites wotif.com, realestate.com.au and webjet.com.au, which all compare products in their respective industry.

"I think the banks underestimate how savvy consumers are and I think this time they definitely have," Mr Gamble said.

Another site, ratecity.com.au, which also makes money the same way as Mozo does, also noticed a significant jump in traffic.

Its chief executive officer, Damian Smith, said his site had "larger numbers than Mozo" and saw "a big jump and it’s literally from the morning after the Melbourne Cup".

"The interesting thing for us was one of the comparisons we did against December 2009. That was the last time something like this happened where the RBA went 25 basis points and the banks went nearly double. So we compared the traffic impact this time compared to last time and this time the impact was 50 per cent greater than in December 2009," he said.

Mr Smith said it showed that more consumers were "conscious of the fact that they can compare and can switch" home loans.

"I think that consumer awareness of the alternatives to the big four in particular is growing," he said.

"It’s certainly much greater than it was twelve months ago and I think that is the exciting point here: that consumers are more aware of their options than they were twelve months ago."

Most people visiting the ratecity.com.au website were arriving through search terms like "compare interest rates" or "compare home loans" on Google, Mr Smith said.

Another site that's been running for only six months, fizone.com.au, which is run by internet entrepreneur Clinton Balgerar, from WA, has seen a steady increase in its numbers. It only lists a limited number of home loans. Mr Balgerar said it only so listed certain loans if they agreed to give commission.

"We are seeing an increase in traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN from people typing in search terms that relate to getting a better finance deal," Mr Balgerar said. He also said many people had sent him emails venting frustration at the big four banks.

Having been only around for a short period of time, the site has so far this month attracted about 14,000 unique visitors, up 2000 from last month, with the month having not yet ended.

Ratecity.com.au's Damian Smith said sites like his were allowing for the smaller players, "who often have sharper rates", to "get more prominent display".

"Because clearly those guys can’t outspend the big four on brand," he said.

"A small credit union can’t go out and buy $100 million worth of TV [ads]. [But] what they can do, if they have a very attractive rate, is appear most prominently on a site that’s comparing rates. So we play a role in levelling the playing field but clearly there are still some brand things that the big four can do that make it hard for the smaller guys and that’s a bigger issue that has to be dealt with as well."