SMEs and other small energy users are more at risk of potential “bad practice” from TPIs, brokers and energy consultants.
That’s the suggestion from Harvey Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer of eEnergy who spoke to ELN Editor Sumit Bose about recent reports on brokers’ “secret commissions” allegedly paid by suppliers to brokers without business customers’ knowledge.
Mr Sinclair said: “If you go back to 20 years before, a lot of the old financial markets got regulated, you had a lot of traditional phone-based brokerage that have all ended up going to the screen through marketplaces or through technology platforms.
“Probably this is one of the last sectors that still operates in parts of its area as a traditional brokerage. I think the problem that people are starting to recognise is that at the smaller end of low energy-consuming customers, so micro businesses, SMEs, single one-man bands have got a low level of sophistication and are potentially vulnerable to unscrupulous pricing policies.”
Asked whether eEnergy has open conversations with suppliers it is working with, Harvey Sinclair replied: “I’ve made it clear to my senior management team that I’d rather do no business than bad business.
“I would happily, as much as it may sound strange, walk away from revenue if I didn’t feel that we were providing fair value to the customer. The only way you can build a big, scalable business with a long-term future is if you’ve got transparency and a phenomenal service offering.”
Click on the podcast to listen to the full interview.
