Moneysupermarket.com revives bulk switch deal for energy bills

Price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com hopes to kick off a bulk switching deal within weeks to enable thousands of its customers to hunt down cheaper energy bills.

The business has previously urged customers to sign up to bulk “collective switches” — one involving more than 100,000 people — allowing the comparison site to approach providers and gain the best possible deal.

Moneysupermarket has shelved the initiative in recent quarters because a much tighter market — followed by a raft of price hikes — meant energy companies were unable to offer good enough deals.

That squeezed home services revenues — including its energy business — which slipped 45% to £9.3 million in the quarter to March.

But the firm said today that it was “confident of being able to launch a collective energy switch in the coming weeks” albeit on a smaller scale than last year.

Other areas performed strongly — particularly insurance as customers switched to duck rising insurance premium tax — leaving overall revenues up 2% on last year and underlying profits on track to meet market hopes of £114.7 million. Shares rose 5p to 338p.