Price comparison site moneysupermarket.com celebrated ten years in business on December 8. The company has estimated that over the last ten years it has helped around 500 million site users save money.

More than this, moneysupermarket.com claims it has transformed the way people handle their money. Now people can research products such as car insurance, pensions and mortgages before they buy, comparing hundreds of deals before they commit to buying. While ten years ago consumers were walking down the high street looking for the best financial deals, they can now compare deals without even leaving the house. This gives consumers greater control over their money and less pressure to sign up to a specific deal. For example, car insurance customers can choose between deals from more than 100 brands before they buy.

According to moneysupermarket.com, 63 million customers visited the site in the first half of 2009. It estimates that customers will save more than £400 million by using the site this year alone.

Ian Williams, director of communications at moneysupermarket.com, said:

“Moneysupermarket.com has prospered and made it from dot com start up to being a FTSE 250-listed business in ten years because it is genuinely useful to customers.

“Before moneysupermarket.com, shopping around for financial products, for those that could be bothered, meant giving up a Saturday morning to tour branches or work your way through the Yellow Pages. Today, shopping around for financial and travel products is as quick and painless and millions of our customers have benefited by using our site to switch and save money.”