03.30.05 The Motley Fool Selects Informa Research Services
as Consumer Rate Data Provider


The world's premier multimedia financial solutions company teams with the financial industry's premier provider of competitive intelligence

CALABASAS , CALIFORNIA (March 30, 2005) -- Informa Research Services, Inc., today announced an agreement to provide The Motley Fool, Inc., (www.Fool.com) with a real-time mortgage and home equity loan search feed.  Under the agreement, Informa Research Services created and continues to host a customized website for The Motley Fool with live rate and product information on mortgage loans, less-than-perfect-credit loans, home equity loans, and home equity lines of credit.

“The online tool that we provide to Fool.com has the valuable functionality of allowing consumers to search for home loan products,” said Michael E. Adler, President and Managing Director of Informa Research Services.  “Consumers can search by product, geographic location, and credit score.  We are the leader in aggregating consumer loan rates based on credit rate scores and have worked closely with MyFICO.com to ensure the integrity of the data.”

With nearly four million monthly unique visitors, The Motley Fool’s website (www.Fool.com), is one of the most popular personal finance sites on the Internet. The company distributes investment information and advice through its subscription newsletter services, website, books, syndicated newspaper column, and an NPR radio show.  The Motley Fool also provides market news, stock quotes, personal finance information, and message boards. 

“Informa Research Services delivers timely and relevant mortgage banking data to our customers enabling them to educate themselves about the options available to them in the mortgage lending arena," said Gary Hill, SVP of Corporate Development of The Motley Fool. "The Informa tool also allows us to integrate our current lending partners and, through Informa's network, expand the marketplace of available lenders to consumers.”

“Mortgage and home equity rate shoppers will find this online rate tool extremely helpful,” Adler continued.  “Lenders will find great opportunities to reach the wealth of consumers searching Fool.com for information on mortgage products and lending options.  With the ability to generate rate shopping based on credit score, our lending information is of greater value to potential borrowers.  This format also offers great opportunities for lenders to reach qualified potential clients.”


About Informa Research Services, Inc. (www.informars.com)

Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Calabasas, CA, Informa Research Services, Inc., provides the financial industry's most extensive array of market research and decision-support information.

Conducting daily surveys of the retail, lending, and business products offered by more than 10,000 financial organizations nationwide, Informa currently supports the product pricing decisions of more than 3,000 clients, representing all 50 states, and including the top 25 financial institutions.  They are the premier provider of fee and feature studies, used to determine the competitiveness of fee-based services, as well as in-depth studies on cash management services, trust products, and other specialized services.  Informa conducts the finest mystery shopping and market research studies available that deliver accurate and relevant measurements in the areas of employee sales and service, customer satisfaction, closed account research, focus groups, competitive performance, and compliance testing.  The company’s extensive financial product database is a popular source of licensed editorial content for financial portals, websites, newspapers, and magazines, attracting major Internet partners, including Yahoo! Finance, Quicken, CNN.com, ABC, MSN, MyFico.com, Edmunds.com, and Internet Broadcasting Systems.

About The Motley Fool, Inc.  (www.fool.com)

The Motley Fool, Inc., is a multimedia investing and personal finance company that educates, amuses, and enriches more than 30 million people each month.  Since 1993, The Motley Fool has been on hand to help people make smarter decisions about their money across a wide variety of online and offline media channels including: subscription investing newsletter services; its award-winning website at www.Fool.com; its best-selling Simon & Schuster and self-published books; a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column carried by more than 225 publications; weekly radio broadcasts; and frequent public and media appearances.