Unlike the stock market which electronically monitors all stock sales of publicly traded companies, changes in rates, fees and product features for retail deposit and lending products are not required by law to be recorded in any retrievable manner. Due to the lack of a mandated or automated source for this information, the data must be compiled and analyzed by hand. Considering that thousands of institutions change the pricing on hundreds of products each day, tracking these changes is an extraordinarily large responsibility.

Datatrac is a market research firm that has made this responsibility our business. For over 20 years, Datatrac has been an independent source of retail deposit and lending product information. We manage the most comprehensive database of deposit and lending data in the industry. Thousands of financial institutions across America rely on the information in Datatrac's databases to make informed, competitive pricing decisions.

We take pride in our ability to get the job done right. Our 100% Accuracy Guarantee is our way of standing behind our data - It's right or it's free. It's that simple. In order to back up our guarantee, Datatrac maintains a comprehensive system of checks and balances to verify the accuracy of our data. And, while no process is perfect, our proprietary Data Collection System (DCS) enforces a robust error checking protocol, continually monitoring our data for consistency. Variations such as large basis point changes from the prior week or new specials are flagged for further review.

Our data is obtained directly from financial institutions through various channels. These channels include institutions entering their data into our secured system over the internet or by email, facsimile and/or by telephone. In all cases, every institution in our database is assigned to one of several Market Research Teams and to a Customer Quality Team. These teams take special care to consistently work with and develop a relationship with the same knowledgeable contact at each institution week after week. Our teams maintain copious trails of who, when and how our data was obtained. We constantly review numerous quality checkpoints to ensure accuracy.

Much of our industry leading accuracy depends on the institution reporting to us. For that reason, Datatrac relies greatly on the relationships we have developed with thousands of individual banks, credit unions and other financial institutions over the years. These relationships are crucial to our way of doing business and are a key strategic advantage in Datatrac's ability to consistently provide timely, accurate and unbiased data.

Datatrac does not make opinions as to the interpretation of our data. Our job is simply to report the data as it is reported to us. Datatrac is committed to providing completely unbiased information and does not accept incentives or promotions that would materially influence our data. Please contact Datatrac at Service@datatrac.net if you have any questions regarding our research standards.