It’s an irony of the Moneysupermarket name that, other than cashbacks, it doesn’t tell its 14 million customers how to save money in a supermarket. It was launched on the back of mortgage comparison in the pre-internet 1980s, moving into travel, banking and insurance. The latter is now its backbone.
Consequently, the group has become crisis-led. Energy deals were the hot topic two years ago, before the government imposed a price cap that made comparison redundant. Last year it was car insurance, as premiums rose sharply.
Yet helping to put out fires is not a comfortable business model, so for the past three years Peter Duffy, the chief executive, has been concentrating on building relationships with customers and providers. It has bought Quidco, the cashback
