Banks fight back against price comparison websites

Financial services companies are blocking price comparison websites from publishing their product information because they fear coming bottom of the league tables.

Companies are using IP blocks to prevent websites from grabbing their data and using it to show consumers which company has the cheapest product.

Martha Bennett, vice president at analyst Forrester, told silicon.com: "I know they block them. Companies don't want to be driven into this price competition."

The technique used to grab the data is called 'screen-scraping', which does the donkey work for users by displaying information from several websites in one place.

For example, in order to compare insurance quotes a user has to type in their information just once and the screen-scraper will bring back results from 20 companies.

One price comparison website, moneysupermarket.com, confirmed some brands have taken the decision "not to engage with any aggregators".

A spokesman for moneysupermarket.com said: "Some of them refuse to be compared. They can block the IP. Without a doubt comparison is here to stay. They have to learn to live with that.

"In the early days quite a lot of providers were firmly against it. But people have realised we are going to do it. It can be a little uncomfortable for them. One or two companies have [blocked us]. At one point we though this could be a major problem."

Forrester's Bennett added: "The companies that block don't really stand to gain. You have to say to them 'sorry guys but the industry is changing'. For simpler products consumers are increasingly getting more competitive deals if they know what they after.

"Companies should make sure they make some information available. Consumers might know your brand name but wonder why your name never comes up on a comparison search."