The one-stop shop that tells you the best buys

Investors have a liking for account aggregation, says William Kay. So why are the big banks undecided?

There have been a few delays, and it is still not entirely free of glitches, but moneysupermarket.com has finally come up with its version of account aggregation, the internet system that allows you to put all your financial accounts and bills on one screen without the need to keep putting in account numbers, identities and passwords.

This system has been available in the US and elsewhere for years. But although the Financial Services Authority has no problem with the concept, it has met fierce resistance from Britain's major banks, including HSBC which offers the service in the US. Through their trade body, the Association for Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), they have been pleading security risks with customers' confidential information.

But 18 months ago the US-based Citibank imported its account aggregation system, which "scrapes" the latest account details shown on the internet. This is effectively a snapshot, which then lets the user drill through to the website of his or her bank or other provider to move money.

Then, last year, Egg produced its own version which has extra security protection in the sense that the security codes stay on the customer's PC or Mac, and money can be moved between accounts. It has 144,000 users.

The moneysupermarket version does leave most of an individual's data on his or her terminal, and it does allow money transfers. However, as our picture of a typical moneysupermarket View My Accounts internet screen shows, the key difference between this and the rival offerings from Citibank and Egg is the instant and constant comparisons between each of your accounts and the best available in the market.

And it does not mince words. "Save £441 extra by comparing 300 credit cards", it says next to our mythical customer's credit card account. "Earn £164 extra by comparing 1,100 savings accounts. Save £43 extra by comparing 300 current accounts." And the message stays in place as long as you resist changing, unless your existing provider offers a better deal.

An easy click-through takes users to a league table of similar accounts, with details of the strings attached to each, making it a simple matter to decide whether it is worth making the switch. This is a straightforward re-spinning of the product comparisons the website shows on its main pages, tailored to the individual's circumstances. To make the comparisons, the user's types of account and balances are stored on the moneysupermarket database

Chris Nixon, the director of moneysupermarket in charge of the project, claims that in the few weeks the facility has been piloted so far, about a third of users have switched. He says: "Although the numbers are small, it has surprised us how many have been prompted to switch on the basis of our comparison. In contrast, Egg and Citibank are not able to add value to the user."

Soon, he hopes, users will be able to run a sweep of accounts with banks or building societies, so excess cash can be transferred automatically from a current account to a best-buy deposit account..

And there are still problems with the set-up. The service is not available on Macs, although Macs can access other parts of the moneysupermarket site. Macs will be supported when there is enough demand, Mr Nixon said. But when I entered my bank details on a PC, I could get no further than the message telling me it was logging on to my bank's site. I gave up after five minutes, but on checking my bank's site directly later, it did inform me I had accessed my account at the time when I was failing to get to it through moneysupermarket.

Mr Nixon is currently in talks with several banks about supplying the new system to them under their name. This is a replica of the so-called "white labelling" moneysupermarket already supplies to financial groups which want to offer their own customers an internet comparison service. "I think we are three months from signing our first bank," he says. "It will probably be an internet one."

But the big question will be whether the banks have the courage to take the full version of the moneysupermarket account aggregation, or fall prey to censoring it to avoid unflattering comparisons. If they succumb to that, you can be sure such chicanery will soon be brought to light, so it is a fine dilemma for them.

Rachel Shirbon, at Egg, says: "We welcome the moneysupermarket site, because we are strong believers in account aggregation. It's similar to ours, in that you secure your password on your own PC. They have access to more sites, because we took the decision to limit ours to financial services ones. I wonder if the product comparison reminders are going to get on people's nerves after a while."

David Bacall, who is the head of online at Citibank, says: "I welcome moneysupermarket's initiative, but I do not believe it would be suitable for our target audience. Because you need to download a Java applet for their version, it is essentially confined to one PC whereas you can access ours anywhere from an internet café to an office or hotel abroad.

"We offer access to 3,000 sites, a lot more than theirs, and we are not in the business of helping to sell competitors' products so we would not be interested in product comparison." Citibank has 20,000 account aggregation customers.