2008-05-28 16:30:19 -

www.marketratesinsight.com/new - Market Rates Insight Rick Barham, 415-448-8800 Rick.barham@marketratesinsight.com or Woolf Media Relations Tom Woolf, 415-259-5638 tomw@woolfmedia.com Market Rates Insight (MRI, www.marketratesinsight.com/new), a leading research firm that tracks rates for deposits, loans, and fees to help financial institutions price with precision, today announced the release of a new Scanned Ad subscription tool as part of its Premium online research tool,

MyRI (My Rates Insight). Search by Ad now allows MyRI subscribers to view up-to-date newspaper and magazine advertisements from competing institutions in over 200 major metropolitan areas, including the terms outlined in the fine print. The new Scanned Ad tool allows subscribers to closely track competitive offers from banks and credit unions, showing them exactly what promotions are being used in national and regional publications.

"The current financial climate makes it harder than ever to build volume, which is why banks need a 360-degree snapshot of their competitive market," said Rick Barham, founder and CEO of Market Rates Insight. "With the release of Search by Ad, MRI subscribers now get a complete picture of the market, including competitive rates for deposits, loans, and fees, and the changing packages that their competitors are creating to attract new customers. It's up-to-date and complete. This is yet another of a new tool in a suite of research tools designed to help our clients outdistance the competition, not just keep pace."

Depending on the subscription level, subscribers set their own search criteria using the web interface to MyRI, including establishing the number of markets they wish to track, the number of competitors, the major metropolitan area (or DMA), and even specific publications. The service tracks regional editions of national publications as well, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, etc.

Search by Ad allows subscribers to track competing ads across multiple product types in newspapers and magazines, and provides additional details such as headlines, when the ad appeared, and how frequently. Copies of the ads themselves are available for viewing as ether JPG images or, for higher resolution PDF file formats (available with either the Premium Interactive or Premium Dashboard subscription) to view offer details such as account opening requirements in the fine print.

The reports are designed to track recent promotions and advertisements, displaying the past 60 days of print ads. Over time, subscribers will be able to review historical offers by searching the advertising archive. In addition to Search by Ad, MRI also maintains Search by Product, a comprehensive database of competitive deposit, loan, and fee products from institutions nationwide spanning more than 20 years. It's part of Market Rates Insight's new MyRI suite of integrated intelligence products that delivers a 360-degree view of the competition, including competing products, rates and fees, GAP Analysis, ProductBuilder, and now local promotions and advertisements. The new MyRI suite of research tools is designed to put the latest competitive data information at your fingertips, on demand.

For more information about Search by Ad, Search by Product, and other MRI products, visit www.marketratesinsight.com/new.

About Market Rates Insight

For more than two decades, Market Rates Insight (MRI) has been helping subscribers price with precision by providing banks, thrifts, credit unions, and other financial institutions with accurate market intelligence on deposits, loans, and fees. MRI uses deposit surveys, mortgage and consumer loan surveys, fee and feature studies, scanned ads, new product alerts, and market share and money fund reports to give subscribers the intelligence they need to profitably react to emerging trends. MRI's products include customized, web-enabled market research tools that report on rates, as well as online searchable databases, gauges, alerts, and dashboards that aggregate key client data to provide real-time views on how they stack up against market competitors.

Market Rates Insight is located in San Anselmo, California. For more information, see www.marketratesinsight.com.

Latest Addition to MRI's New Premium Web Intelligence System is
Search by Ad That Tracks Competing Promotions Down to the Fine Print