MoneySupermarket on the climb despite savings setback

The price comparison website MoneySupermarket.com saw first-quarter revenues rise 13 per cent and profits grow 31 per cent thanks largely to last year's £87m takeover of Money-SavingExpert.

But the group blamed the Government's Funding For Lending scheme for a 45 per cent drop in revenues in the savings and current accounts part of its business. It said the scheme had "reduced competition for retail deposits and has reduced savings revenues year on year." Despite this, its chief executive Peter Plumb said: "We've made a solid start to 2013. The benefits of our increasingly diversified business are evident. We generated strong growth in our insurance, home services and travel businesses, which more than offset lower demand in our money business."

He said MoneySavingExpert's Cheap Energy Club had gone down a storm. The travel website also performed strongly with demand for holidays, car rentals and hotels producing a 23 per cent rise in revenues.