Supermarkets are offering 'overpriced' financial products alongside 'value for money' groceries, according to a survey by UK consumer group Which?
The data gathered by Which? resulted from an investigation into six of the major financial products supermarkets offer, namely savings accounts, loans, credit cards, car insurance, travel and life insurance, between August and October 2006. It also compared these products against other non-traditional finance providers such as Virgin and the Post Office.
Which? claims that supermarkets are trading on their reputation of offering ‘good value’ groceries to facilitate the sales of its financial products, which need to be more carefully considered by consumers.
Neil Fowler, editor of Which?, said: Just because supermarkets offer good value on groceries, don’t assume this applies across the board. You can pay well over the odds for the convenience of picking up a financial product with your weekly shopping.
Financial services have been offered at retailers for over 10 years – at Marks & Spencers, Tesco and Sainsbury’s to name a few.
‘The Which? research tells people to shop around, and we agree with that. You are never going get one company that is the cheapest for everything, but we try to offer consistently good value, Stuart Neill from Tesco Personal Finance told This is Money.
However, good value finance products at the checkout can be found, Which? said. For example, Sainsbury’s Internet Savings Account pays a healthy 5% interest, and Asda, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s all offer good-value life insurance products.