Moneyfacts.co.uk, Moneysupermarket.com, MoneyExpert.com, MoneyExtra.com, uSwitch.com, Gocompare.com, ComparetheMarket.com — the list of so-called “independent” price comparison sites seems never-ending. So, at first sight, news of a new one is unsurprising, except that it is to come from the City watchdog.

The aggregator sector is, undoubtedly, overcrowded. The sheer number of players in the market looks set to claim the scalp of utilities comparison site SimplySwitch.com — bought by Britain’s Associated Northcliffe Digital, part of Daily Mail and General Trust, for 22 million pounds in August 2006 — by the end of February.

It started a 30-day consultation in mid-January on closing the businesses with the loss of 65 jobs — a move it blamed on a slump in consumer demand for switching energy providers. But the proliferation of sites that claim to search the market to find consumers the cheapest deals on everything from car insurance and credit cards to gas and electricity, all with little effort and no cost, has surely had a large part to play in SimplySwitch’s downfall.

Against that backdrop, news that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to branch into the sector with the introduction of a credit card comparison service is all the more interesting. Although no timetable has been set, the FSA has signed up to the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) recommendations, which have also received the backing of the credit card industry, via payments association Apacs, and the rest of the financial sector.

How exactly the FSA’s comparison site will work remains to be seen. But, surely, it will be free from any potential commercial bias: the main problem with the existing glut of aggregator sites is that few, if any, are truly independent by virtue of their money-making motives.

These are, of course, profit-making businesses, raking in millions of pounds in commission and advertising from product providers. Most charge providers varying levels of commission, giving rise to ulterior motives in pushing certain products over others.

That, I would wager, is not nearly as well known by the general public as the mere existence of the sites themselves. Few people can fail to have heard of such sites, amidst huge marketing budgets that mean the ability to search the market at the click of a mouse is beamed into our living-rooms on a daily basis.

The extent to which consumers actually use such sites is, however, up for debate. The OFT says the vast majority of people do not scour the market for the best deal before taking out a credit card, while research by one of these very sites — MoneyExpert.com — shows that 5.9 million people have switched credit cards in the past six months in a bid to get their debts under control.

It says so-called “rate tarts” are here to stay as long as credit card companies offer lengthy balance transfer deals, some as long as 15 months (although these nowadays come with transfer fees, something almost unheard of just a couple of years ago). “It will almost certainly be the case that everyone can save money by switching — or at least stave off hefty interest payments — and we would urge consumers to continue to seek out the best deals,” says Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.com.

He would say that, some might say. But anything that aims to demystify the often baffling world of personal finance for time-pressed consumers, helping them to make informed choices should be welcomed. The launch of such a tool that is completely free from bias should be positively celebrated.