Give me jam jars any day

Jim Spowart probably deserves to be known as 'Mr Mortgage'.

Even if your interest in money is minimal you will have noticed the proliferation of advertisements for new-fangled mortgages and savings accounts. Jim Spowart is one of the reasons for all this activity. He took Direct Line into savings and mortgages, and at Standard Life he pioneered the flexible homeloan in the UK.

Now he is working for Halifax bank, as it tests the systems for IF, or Intelligent Finance. IF will offer a full range of banking and savings accounts but the big idea is that if you have deposits with IF, these will be set against borrowings to reduce the interest you pay. Spowart argues that IF customers shouldn't have to shop around obsessively for a good deal in an industry obsessed with profits.

'Banks have forgotten they are the custodians of people's money,' he says. And, naturally, IF will operate via the internet and the telephone. IF's launch was postponed when Spowart and his team discovered that it couldn't cope under pressure. The team is now testing upgrades with the aim of launching by the end of this month.

One of IF's guiding principles is that some of the best returns to be had on your money are available simply by paying off debt.It's not a new idea; the flexible mortgage draws on it, as does Virgin's current account mortgage. But Spowart is not sure the mass market is ready to tie mortgages to current accounts and, anyway, he is a great believer in the jam-jar system for managing money. At Direct Line and Standard Life, savers could designate separate accounts for different purposes - holidays, new car, wedding - but still be paid a high rate of interest on their total balance.

Spowart, now earning ?250,000 a year plus bonuses, still has a budget account to pay for holidays and bills, a throwback to his days as a ?28-a-month bank employee. This Scot, who lists 'church elder' as a hobby on his CV, has 'Presbyterian' attitudes to money: 'It's important but not the be-all and end-all.' He derives satisfaction from having created 4,500 jobs in the businesses he has built. But money is not so unimportant that it did not play a part in his decision to move from Standard Life.

He moved there on ?125,000, not, in retrospect due recognition of the job he had done for the insurer: 'I was poorly rewarded for that.' But it's not the money itself that is the issue, he insists, but that people be suitably rewarded for the job they do.

Having built three businesses from scratch, Spowart has had little time to spend what surplus he has accumulated. Even if he had, he wouldn't flash it around, he says. He enjoys the trappings of a comfortable middle-class existence - a good holiday each year, membership of a golf club and a car for his wife.

At 49 he has no mortgage and he recently bought a flat in Edinburgh for his two sons, one of whom is still at university. He has an accountant to handle his tax affairs , and manages his own investments, a collection of unit trusts, shares and deposit accounts, but he doesn't find this particularly exciting.

And yes, of course, he will have IF accounts. If it all sounds a little dull, ask yourself this: no matter how much we want innovation from our banks, would we trust a banker who was flamboyant with his own money?