Cannex now Canstar

Canstar Cannex will be the new name of the banking product research group previously known only as Cannex. The expiry next year of the licence to use the Canadian-based group's name has forced the change in name.

Cannex of Australia bought out its Canadian partner in 2005.  

In a media release yesterday Canstar's chief executive Andrew Spicer said the firm attracted more than 100,000 visitors to its site last month.

Canstar is also an investor in RateCity in a joint venture with NineMSN. Andrew Willink, chief executive of RateCity (and founder of Cannex, now Canstar) said that site attracted 875,000 unique visitors a month, of which 215,000 turned into referrals to financial institutions (and thus revenue for RateCity).

Willink said traffic was strongest for deposits and also credit cards but weaker for home loans, given the market changes wrought by the credit crunch.

While the number of financial institutions and banking products is shrinking, the number of businesses seeking to steer consumers through their options is increasing.

MoZo, or Money Zone, debuted a month or so ago. InfoChoice, the long standing rival to Canstar, relaunched its consumer offering a couple of months ago.

Various other consumer finance sites also compete for readers though they source their data from one or more of these product databases.