Ingrid Santana from Pexels
News Digital Banking
B launches energy switching service with GoCompare
The price comparison website said B customers could make savings of up to £375 by moving between tariffs.
CYBG, which owns Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, has struck a deal with price comparison website GoCompare to offer an energy switching service to customers of its digital banking service B.
The new service is powered by SaveStack, a technology platform developed by GoCompare’s parent firm GoCo Group, and will allow B customers to search for new energy deals on the mobile banking app.
B, launched in 2016, has over 300,000 UK users and more than three-quarters of those which pay for their utility bills by direct debit are with one of the UK's Big Six energy suppliers.
Customer details are used to pre-populate many of the questions needed to carry out an accurate price comparison.
Significant savings
GoCompare said energy savings of up to £375 are “not uncommon”, adding that the new service could mean B customers could pay “significantly less for their gas and electricity”.
The service uses Open Banking technology, which operates through the Payment Services Directive and application programming interface rules.
A change in European Union law at the start of the year has ushered in Open Banking, which means consumers can allow businesses, other than their bank, to access their financial data.
Advocates say this potentially allows customers to get better deals, such as cheaper overdrafts, and speed up switching between banks and other services.
B rebrand
Sam Bedford, head of CYBG’s accelerator, said: “Having been early adopters of Open Banking, our new partnership with GoCompare has launched the first energy comparison and switching service for bank customers in the UK.”
Hannah Iles, director of platform services at GoCo Group, said: "Our ambition is to save people time and money using technology and we're moving at speed to open up our platform SaveStack to provide more savings opportunities to more people than ever before.
Last month, CYBG said it will rebrand itself as Virgin Money following the completion of its £1.7bn purchase of the rival group last year. As part of this move, the group said the rebrand of B to Virgin Money “will begin in 2019, to complete in the first half of 2020”.
In May, Monzo teamed up with Octopus Energy and Ovo Energy to allow customers to switch to just two challenger suppliers through its mobile banking app
Companies In This Article
