Non-existent several years ago, financial comparison sites have suddenly sprouted up in Asia demonstrating the growing sophistication of Asia's middle class consumers in selecting their financial products such as personal loans or credit cards.

Although a relatively new service in Asia, these specialized sites have already been established in places like Europe and Australia. "I've always known about these billion dollar financial comparison players in Europe. It's very common there to go to the internet and compare financial products before you go to a sales person," explained Gerald Eder co-founder and managing partner at CompareAsia Group.

It was a similar story for Ching Wei Lee, CEO and co-founder of iMoney who also noticed at the time of the site's founding in 2012 that Asian consumers were beginning to seek information about financial products online. "We decided to focus on the site in Malaysia first and see if consumers were receptive to it," Lee recalls. "From a consumer perspective it was a no-brainer people quickly understood the value from a website that could provide free advice."

While both CompareAsia Group and iMoney are just less than four years old they are slowly emerging as key competing players in Asia's developing financial comparison industry. Both have already rapidly expanded outside of their home markets aiming to gain market share. For example, iMoney has a strong presence in Malaysia and also has developed a following in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. For Ching though, it wasn't about being the first in the market but more "the first company to deliver value to consumers."

Likewise, CompareAsia Group in just two years after it started in 2013 has quickly established itself in eight markets across the Asian region stretching from Hong Kong to Indonesia. "We opened in different markets pretty much simultaneously," explains Eder. "It's challenging to do at first but with communication and technology it's easy to work as a team on a regional basis."

While Asian consumers no doubt will appreciate having better visibility in choosing their financial products, some banks may be reluctant to share information about their products to external parties. "It's all about trust in the financial technology space," says Eder. "We need to knock on the bank's door and explain this comparison concept to them and fully understand their products." Ching highlights that he had to be "patient" with his financial services partners. "There is a lot of explaining on how we do things and getting the bank comfortable," he says. "We are not here to take over their business, we are here to grow with them."

Their work eventually paid off with both sites now showcasing partnerships with major foreign financial institutions such as Citibank and HSBC and local financial institutions including OCBC and CIMB. "The bank would feed us updates and changes to their products even before they launch it," Ching explains.

With bank partnerships in place, both companies have turned their attention in converting site traffic into actual business for their financial partners. "We need to show the banks that we can drive down the cost of acquiring new customers because the alternative of more bank branches and sales people is very inefficient," says Eder.

The battle of Asian financial comparison sites will also be fought over future funding. Just recently, CompareAsia Group raised a total of US$40 million from investors such as Goldman Sachs, "this round of funding shows the huge amount of confidence and trust from the market about our business model and team," Eder comments. Moreover, last September, iMoney raised US$4 million when Australia-based online comparison service iSelect bought a 20% stake in the company. "iSelect already dominates in Australia so they decided to seek opportunities in Asia," notes Ching.

Constantly growing with new players every day, the future remains exciting, yet competitive for the financial comparison industry. iMoney is already seeing more than 1.5 million unique visitors a month to their site and CompareAsia Group has plans to improve its comparison capability. "Our latest round of extra funding can help us invest in a new technology platform offering a better user experience," says Eder. The question now is whether more financial services providers will take full advantage of the additional channel available to them.