About PeoplesChampion.com

Our idea is simple. To bring you the best deals as easily and simply as possible. Why? Because we feel the consumer has been paying through the nose for too long.

But we also want to turn the spotlight on some of the sharp practices and hidden costs which have stung the consumer. Each year in the UK alone consumers are missing out on deals that could save the whole country billions of pounds. Rip-off fees, hidden clauses, spurious advertising campaign - how is the public likely to know where to find the best deal? It’s a minefield.

At Peopleschampion.com we want to be trusted friend - steering you to the best deals. We have teamed up with Moneysupermaket.com and with uSwitch and between them they will be providing us with thousands of price comparisons to suit you. Both Moneysupermarket.com and uSwitch have industry-leading technology that can scour thousands of deals - and that’s why Peopleschampion.com decided to choose them as partners to bring you the best deal.

Peopleschampion.com founder Jim Spowart says:

“Our aim is to make Peopleschampion.com the number one brand to trust. We aim to become the first port of call for those who want a better deal in anything from car insurance to holidays and domestic billls. We’ll be commenting loud and clear on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We’re here to help the consumer.”

 

How did People’s Champion come about?

Founder Jim Spowart explains the origin of People’s Champion:

“I was chatting to some friends over coffee and they asked me for some advice about where to put some windfall savings.

“They knew I was a banker and might have the right answer. They were truly perplexed about all the contrary advice swirling around. They just wanted a secure place to put their cash with the best return. ‘What should we do with our £1,500, Jim?’ they asked me.

“I was expected to know the answer there and then. I didn’t though - I wasn’t an independent financial adviser. I scratched my head and smiled: ‘Let me find out. I’ll come back to you as soon as possible.’

“I made a few calls, did a bit of research and then I wondered how many other people were in a similar position. So I decided that it might be good to try and help a lot more people.

“When I went back with the answer to my friend’s inquiry I was able to give three choices. One was the obvious best deal for my friends. It was soon sorted. ‘Jim, you could be the People’s Champion,’ was my friend’s grateful response. Then I realised that many more people really did need better help in finding a deal. So People’s Champion was created.”

Signed: Jim Spowart.

 

What are the plans for People’s Champion?

Since starting our in September 2006, we have now had more than 100,000 customers But Peopleschampion.com still wants to become a major movement, where consumers are given the best choices and value for the products they want. We’re all fed up with rip-off merchants, poor service and products. So we’ll be on the case of the banks, insurance companies, energy suppliers and phone companies who try and get away with abysmal service. We’ll be pointing you in the right direction, so that you can select the most suitable options.

 

So who is Jim Spowart?

Jim Spowart is the first of the People’s Champions. He is a well-respected financial figure in the UK who has built several major businesses that have created over 5,000 jobs in the UK. Quite an achievement!

He is a true innovator in devising and delivering products that have benefited the UK consumers. He has a reputation for integrity and fairness.

His award-winning achievements in the field of banking and financial services have given him a unique insight into what is the best for the customer. So having this kind of support on your side is a bonus.

He began as a branch teller with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, and then swiftly moved to senior positions in UK banking. Jim set up the hugely successful Direct Line Financial Services, part of the Direct Line Group. You’ll recognise it by the red telephone on wheels. It’s now part of RBS Group in the UK. He then went on to set up two major banks. Firstly, he started Standard Life Bank in January 1998, part of Standard Life Assurance Company in Edinburgh. Then Halifax asked him to set up and brand-new concept in 2000 with the creation of Intelligent Finance, now a profitable part of HBOS.

Jim Spowart left HBOS in 2004 and is now an originator of Peopleschampion.com

 

What the media are saying about PeoplesChampion.com

From The Herald newspaper, 23 January 2007

Spowart’s latest online venture heads for profit

By Simon Bain

Jim Spowart, who launched telephone banking businesses for RBS, Standard Life and Halifax, has taken a starring role in promoting his latest online venture.

The "I'm Jim Spowart" campaign is aimed at attracting customers to the peoples-champion.com website, and Spowart said yesterday: "This company is going to be profitable this year. It is almost profitable now."

The business was set up by parent SMG, which is currently struggling to meet its banking covenants and faces a takeover negotiation with UTV. Spowart admitted that the campaign on Virgin Radio, Pearl & Dean cinema advertising, posters, STV and Grampian, was funded directly by SMG and was probably "a £1m campaign".

The venture has only a handful of employees and is positioned as a gateway to the established consumer switching sites moneysupermarket. com and uswitch.com.

Spowart said it was moving towards offering its own-branded financial products, which would have to compete in comparison tables. Uswitch was recently sold for £210m, while moneysupermarket.com was originally slated for flotation at more than £500m, and the valuation has subsequently been increased to £1bn. Spowart has signed five-year contracts with both organisations, including a tier one relationship with moneysupermarket.

"Even if we are sitting on their coat-tails going forward, peopleschampion is going to do well," he said. "There was no point reinventing the wheel. This is proving to be quite a good deal for SMG." Since launch in September, the website has attracted 70,000 customers (as opposed to hits) who have used the site to find and buy a financial product.

Half the business is in motor insurance, where the site earns an introduction fee for a policy transacted by a supplier to one of the partner sites, but the next biggest demand is for secured and unsecured loans.

Spowart worked with Peter Wood at Direct Line Financial Services to set up RBS's first telephone mortgage operation. He started Standard Life Bank, and was then lured away by Halifax ("with an offer I couldn't refuse") to launch Intelligent Finance, where he stayed less than five years.

"These are highly pressurised situations," Spowart commented. "Taking IF to break-even and profit was the first time a start-up bank had reached profitability within three to four years. At that point, I thought it was appropriate to move on."

He then became a consultant, advising Polish banks on how to set up telephone operations.

In a sideswipe at the sector he left behind, Spowart says: "People are no longer stuck with their bank - loyalty only goes as far as price. If you go out into the market now with these (online) tools, you will quickly find you don't want an overdraft at 17%."

He is referring to the current rate at RBS. "You would be better off moving it onto a credit card with a 0% rate for nine months or a year than be stuck with an overdraft at 17%. You need to be aware of what you are paying."

Reproduced by kind permission of The Herald newspaper.

From the Edinburgh Evening News, January 23 2007

Spowart champions his website’s profit prospects

The man behind telephone banking businesses at RBS, Standard Life and Halifax has claimed his new PeoplesChampion.com website will become profitable this year - its first year of business.

Jim Spowart, who was the brains behind Direct Line Financial Services before setting up RBS's first telephone mortgage operation, expressed his optimism as he revealed he would be the star of his own "I'm Jim Spowart" campaign, in a bid to attract more customers to the website. Mr Spowart, who also helped establish online and telephone banking business Intelligent Finance, said: "This company is going to be profitable this year. It is almost profitable now."

The website, which was set up last year by parent company SMG is run as a gateway to the established consumer switching sites moneysupermarket.com and uswitch.com.

Mr Spowart said the site was moving towards offering its own-branded financial products, which would appear as competitors to the products listed in comparison tables on the site. Since it launched in September, around 70,000 customers have used the website to buy a financial product - with half the business coming from motor insurance.

Mr Spowart added: "Even if we are sitting on their coat-tails going forward, PeoplesChampion is going to do well. There was no point reinventing the wheel."

Reproduced by kind permission of Scotsman publications.

From Mail on Sunday, 8 October 2006

Credit card companies' 'pure greed'

Jeff Prestridge's column in the Financial Mail on Sunday

Credit card companies have just experienced their worst quarter for two years, according to the Confederation of British Industry. Maybe that explains why card companies are desperately trying to claw back lost revenues by furiously raising rates - either for all borrowers or those with deteriorating credit records.

It seems invidious that most credit card interest rates are three times the base rate. Jim Spowart, chairman of financial comparison website peopleschampion.com, believes the reason is 'pure banking greed'.

He says it is time that card issuers were forced to spell out to borrowers that their rates are 200 per cent more than base rate. If this happened, he says, rates would start tumbling. Maybe. But Spowart is dead right when he says it is time credit card companies gave customers a fairer deal.

From Scotland on Sunday, 8 October 2006

Spowart calls for 'wealth warnings' on credit cards

TERRY MURDEN

Credit cards should carry cigarette-style labels warning shoppers of the high repayment costs, according to a Scottish financier.

The "wealth warnings" should be imposed on all cards offering interest rates that are more than 10% above the Bank of England's base lending rate.

Jim Spowart, who launched Standard Life Bank and the online mortgage bank Intelligent Finance, has written to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, about "excessive" charges, demanding legislation.

He says shoppers deserve better protection and that the Office of Fair Trading should investigate the practices of credit card companies.

Spowart, who is now chairman of the price comparison website, Peopleschampion.com, says credit card charges are now a major issue.

As chairman of the Money Advice Board of the young people's discount scheme Young Scot, he is particularly concerned about the poor understanding of interest rates among the young.

Spowart says in his letter, which he also intends to copy to George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, that the cards should carry a warning, such as: "This credit card is charging you a rate of interest 200% above the Bank of England base rate."

Spowart told Scotland on Sunday that there is "no justification for such rates other than pure banking greed".

He said: "The US government has put in legislation about the cost of gambling - it's time we did something in the UK about credit cards. What other consumer industry in the UK is allowed to make a 200% mark-up, then some more? Why are they getting away with this?

"There is no rational reason why some credit cards should be pushing nearly 20% - and some store cards are even worse.

"What we need is legislation in the UK which would insist that lenders highlight the fact that they are charging 200% about the Bank of England's base rate. The cost of these excessive interest rates is certainly contributing to the customers' inability to pay bills."

Peopleschampion.com will be launching a campaign to highlight the worst offenders. Spowart said the cost of personal loans has come down significantly and some are available at 5.8%, yet credit cards have remained an easy cash cow for banks and lenders with the average at 15.9%. The Bank of England base rate is 4.75%.

From Scotland on Sunday, 10 September 2006

Dotcom power to the people

INTERVIEW: JIM SPOWART, BY GUY DIXON

JIM Spowart strides across the room with applause ringing in his ears and a smile on his face. An audience of about 80 has gathered in the Edinburgh offices of Lloyds TSB Scotland eager to hear him talk about how he turned the banking world upside down.

But as he begins speaking it quickly becomes clear that Spowart, who has recently founded his fifth financial services company, does not want to dwell on the past. After the obligatory opening joke, he delivers a breakneck resumé of his corporate life before switching to his latest venture. Spowart, 55, may have built a few empires - notably at Standard Life and HBOS - but he is a restless creator of new enterprises and wants to concentrate on his next project.

The creation of Direct Line with Peter Wood is dealt with in a couple of minutes. Standard Life Bank and Intelligent Finance (owned by HBOS) are given similar treatment. St James' Place Bank is hardly mentioned. Spowart is in a hurry to get on to his central theme - what he sees as a recent lack of progress in the financial services industry and how the new company he has just founded, PeoplesChampion.com, is going to turn the sector on its head once again.

"I have seen little innovation in the financial services sector in the last one-and-a-half to two years," he tells the Business Forum, a networking organisation. "We will see a huge change over the next year or so because there's no hiding place for banks, building societies and other institutions.
"This is because of price comparison websites. We have seen the telephone revolution and the internet revolution, and now we are seeing the internet revolution which gives everyone access to the whole marketplace and not just one bank's products."

PeoplesChampion.com allows users to compare up to 4,000 savings products, 8,500 mortgages, 100 life insurance policies and 300 credit cards and claims all its information is unbiased to allow consumers to make the best choice about their finances.

"We are giving value for money to consumers, giving them choice and trying to be an honest service which gives information so you can make a good call on what products you should have," he says.

Well, he probably would say that and no doubt will be challenged by any user of the site who finds otherwise.

The website went live last weekend with little fanfare - a deliberate ploy, according to Spowart. He says he has learned lessons from the launch of IF, which was postponed for several weeks in July 2000 because of computer problems.

"We did have problems with the launch of IF, and we learned from that," he says. "I have been staggered by the volume of consumers who have done business with us since we opened the doors. We have had 2,300 customers."

Spowart's plan is to create a business which will be similar to The Motley Fool or Google in its ubiquity and the first place people choose to look as a source of information. It's highly ambitious, but Spowart has a proven track record and an insider's knowledge of the industry his website tracks.
Despite establishing four businesses, he is said by friends to be "well off rather than wealthy", which may partly explain his ambition in setting up his latest venture.

After school, he started as a junior clerk in the old National and Commercial Bank in his home town of Cowdenbeath in Fife before joining Royal Bank of Scotland at the Edinburgh HQ.

At RBS, his talents were quickly recognised and, in 1993, he helped found one of the first telephone banks, Direct Line Financial Services, working with Peter Wood.

Standard Life approached him and in 1997 he joined to oversee the creation of Standard Life Bank, where he pioneered the idea of flexible mortgages, allowing customers benefits such as withdrawals to buy other goods and payment holidays.

James Crosby, then chief executive of Halifax, approached him and Spowart hatched his biggest plan to date, Intelligent Finance. He came up with the then revolutionary concept of offsetting - allowing interest earned on current and savings accounts to be counted against interest paid on loans, credit cards and mortgages.

After a shaky start, IF went on to change the marketplace and plans were hatched to roll the business out overseas. But the plans were pulled suddenly and Spowart resigned from HBOS in May 2003, in a move which stunned the banking community. He has his share of detractors within the close-knit Scottish banking sector, no doubt partly inspired by a degree of jealousy of his successes.

Since leaving HBOS, he has spent time helping the Maggie's Centre in Dunfermline, and began building links with mainly small IT firms.
He is also involved in the youth information network Young Scot, where he is spearheading the Scottish Executive-backed initiative to offer new products and services to the country's 18 to 26-year-olds. He received an honorary doctorate in business administration from Napier University last November and has been working on his next "big thing".

One of Spowart's talents has been persuading some of the UK's biggest financial services companies to back each venture. In his new company, the Glasgow media group, SMG, is coming on board. The owner of STV and Virgin Radio is looking for new revenue streams as advertising revenues from its core analogue TV business fall, and it has taken an 80% stake in the website.

Spowart, Kenny Kemp, a former business journalist, and three executives from The Union, an advertising agency based in Edinburgh, hold the remaining 20%.

Kemp knew Spowart from his time as a journalist and three of the founding members of The Union - chairman Ian McAteer, creative director Andrew Lindsay and planning and research director Mark Reid - came on board after seeing the plans.

SMG will spend £1m advertising the site annually and estimates it will generate revenues of up to £5m in three years. The company will earn income by taking a commission on each transaction. Spowart is evidently keen to emphasise that he has the backing of a publicly listed company and the credibility this lends his company.

"PeoplesChampion.com was an idea I had that I bounced off Donald Emslie [acting chief executive of SMG]," he says. "There's no risk to the consumer."

A UK advertising blitz will begin this month, starting in Scotland.

Despite having made a comfortable living from financial services, Spowart is now critical of the hand that has fed him and claims innovation is being hampered by the need to increase profits. He says financial services companies are not doing enough to help customers ensure they get the best deal.

"My message to consumers is to be vigilant [when choosing and using financial products]. When your car insurance goes up, look at the whole marketplace. When your home insurance goes up, look at the whole marketplace."

If things work out, the website will be expanded to include other areas. Plans are being hatched that could result in People's Champion-branded products being offered in conjunction with a financial services company on the website.

Spowart is quick to point out that his products would be ranked objectively along with those of rival companies. Other types of consumer products could follow on the website.

"The plan is to go into utilities. We are talking about doing something quite soon. Mobile phones is a massive marketplace where there are big issues. The concept will evolve and there is no reason why we couldn't put on cars, white goods and a variety of products."

He also admits to feeling pressure to make his latest business as successful as the others, and is all too aware that people have invested in the expectation that he will work his magic again. With this in mind, he is not setting modest targets. "Our goal is for People's Champion to become a household name. People's Champion is going to be known in every household in Scotland. This is going to be very successful."

The Scotsman 9 September 2006

Tread carefully when searching on the internet for the best deals

ROSEMARY GALLACHER

GONE are the days when people visited their local bank or building society when they wanted a mortgage or savings account - and brand loyalty is becoming a thing of the past.

While choice is generally a good thing, the sheer number of financial products now available can leave consumers feeling confused about what is best for them.

So online financial comparison websites and portals can come in handy, but these are also proliferating, making it difficult to know which ones can be relied on to offer impartial guidance.

One solid piece of advice is to find out who backs the site to determine whether it is independent and try to discover how it generates its income - some get commission from applications made online and others from advertisers.

Last weekend saw the launch of a new comparison site, www.peopleschampion.com Run by Jim Spowart, who founded both Standard Life Bank and Intelligent Finance, the company is promising to shake up the market and leave big providers that are not giving customers good value for money with nowhere to hide.

Peopleschampion joins a plethora of services, such as uSwitch, Interactive Investor, Moneysupermarket, Motley Fool and Moneyfacts, all promising to search the market to find the products people are looking for. Some sites merely provide product comparisons while others let you manage your entire investment portfolio online.

Peopleschampion wants to become the big household name in the sector and is launching a £1.3 million advertising campaign to position itself as such.

Spowart said: "We have 98 per cent of the UK's major financial services companies on the site. We'll provide a quality service to help people save time by taking all the work away.

"No one bank or building society can be ahead of the competition all of the time. Our message is that people should be scouring around for products to find the ones that offer best value for money.

"We recognise there are a number of comparison sites around, but people may be concerned they are fly-by-night. We're a plc and a reputable concern."

Peopleschampion plans to expand into other areas, such as utilities and mobile phones, and will offer tips on products, much like Motley Fool does.

Unlike other price comparison sites, Peopleschampion plans to launch its own range of financial products, from credit cards to loans. But Spowart says this will not bias any searches people do on the site as these products will be ranked alongside others in their range.

What might not be instantly clear to visitors is that peopleschampion is powered by the technology from moneysupermarket.com, so a search on both sites will generate the same results. Moneysupermarket was established in 1998 and now powers more than 250 websites that benefit from its negotiating power with providers.

Rather than traipsing round your high street, the internet is a good place to start your financial search, but as Andrew Hagger, head of news and press at Moneyfacts.co.uk, warned: "Comparison sites offer a useful barometer and a good place to start, but people shouldn't automatically go for the product that comes out best in terms of rating."

This article: http://business.scotsman.com/index

The Sunday Times, 3 September 2006

Scots price comparison site goes live

PEOPLESCHAMPION.COM, the price comparison website set up by financial entrepreneur Jim Spowart, is due to go live today, writes John Penman.

The media group SMG paid £250,000 for the site before it was even launched by Spowart, who set up Intelligent Finance and Standard Life bank.

The site, which will initially be Scottish-focused, has already attracted the attention of many of the UK’s leading financial services brands.

SMG is set to publicise the site through its STV and Virgin Radio franchises later in September with an extensive advertising campaign.

Prior to launch, Peopleschampion.com is said to have attracted a significant amount of online advertising and thousands of website hits from expectant consumers.

“I’ve been looking forward to getting back into the fray with financial services,” said Spowart.

His site, which will be powered by Moneysupermarket.com, will offer comparisons on dozens of mortgages, hundreds of credit cards and scores of insurance products.

The Halifax, American Express, Prudential, Esure and Debenhams have signed up to advertise on the site.