There seems to be a rush on financial services related startups of late and now there’s another company who has joined the fray that wants to help us save money.

Launched yesterday, Mozo is is a new kind of financial service website that uses consumer generated content and live data feeds to compare and rate financial products and providers on everything from interest rates to customer service.

The site combines personalised price comparison tools with what the team are calling “the first comprehensive customer ratings system for financial products”.

On top of that there’s also a “health check application” that allows people to health check their current home loan, credit card or personal loan to see if they would benefit from switching.

The way it works is that you simply enter your existing product details and Mozo compares the hundreds of products they have in their database to generate a report showing the Top 5 products that would save you the most money and help pay off your loan or credit card debt faster.

Mozo was founded by Rohan Gamble whose entrepreneurial background includes starting and running Virgin Money in Australia.

Rohan says he “developed Mozo to give consumers a powerful new way to navigate the money maze, and to give financial institutions a reliable and cheap distribution channel”.

He also says that “there is a gap in the market for an online financial services marketplace. In Australia successful online marketplaces have already been established in verticals such as jobs, real estate, travel and cars by companies like Seek and Realestate.com.au. The fact that an online financial services marketplace has yet to be established in Australia is in stark contrast to both the UK and the US, which have seen very strong growth in this space.”

Local competitors include Rate City and InfoChoice, though Mozo looks to have more social features and additional services, beyond pure comparison shopping, than the two incumbents.

For the launch, Mozo teamed up with Roy Morgan to conduct an in-depth survey of 3000 Australians to rate and review their financial providers on trust, customer service, convenience, product features and rates and fees. Some of the expected findings include:

• The Commonwealth Bank and NAB were rated Australia’s least favourite banks
• Bendigo Bank is Australia’s favourite bank, ranking above all the big banks
• Regional banks (often the ones consumers know little about due to limited marketing budgets) dominated the Most Trusted Banks category

It’s taken a bit, but finally it looks like we’re starting to get a really good set of local, financial services, startups that are taking advantage of all the benefits the Internet allows to provide us with services that can help us make better financial decisions.

And in light of the current economic conditions, they’ve probably arrived just in time.