Informa Research Services selected as new provider of online consumer banking product data

CALABASAS, CALIFORNIA (June 23, 2003) -- Informa Research Services, Inc. – today announced a three-year agreement with Microsoft to provide a real-time feed of consumer bank product data for the MSN Banking Center (under the Banking tab at www.money.msn.com). Under the agreement, Informa Research Services (www.informars.com) will provide banking data to help consumers increase gains or minimize costs on banking products, identify the best offers for them, and apply directly online.

“I can’t think of a better way to start our 20th year of business than with the addition of MSN to our growing client list,” said Michael E. Adler, president and managing director of Informa Research Services, Inc. “The major internet portals have been switching their source of competitive rate information to Informa for some time now. We are the logical choice for this data since we partner with the portal and don't compete with them.”

Informa Research Services does not operate a consumer targeted website. Informa does not seek consumer traffic and they do not compete with their portal partners for consumer visitors.

“Our goal is to maximize the traffic for our partners like MSN, and keep financial consumers coming back to their site,” said Adler. “We bring each partner a customized experience to accommodate the unique needs of their users. The information we deliver to MSN is different from the information we deliver to Edmunds.com, Quicken, CNN/Money, MyFICO.com, or Yahoo! Our vast customer base of financial institutions equips us to ensure our partners deliver the most accurate banking information available. Our commitment to excellence has allowed us to secure three additional major portals launching later this summer.”

The Informa data feeds represent a significant addition to the MSN Banking Center, which recently underwent the most substantial overhaul since its launch several years ago.

“To provide consumers with the most useful collection of personal finance tools on the Web, Microsoft aligns with the industry’s leading financial services companies,” said Chris Jolley, director of product management for the Financial Products Group at Microsoft. “Informa’s proven expertise in delivering timely and relevant banking data makes it a valuable addition to MSN Money, and will help educate and inform our site visitors when they’re assessing financial decisions.”

Informa Research Services will continuously update the data available on MSN, providing consumers with the most current bank product information available.


About Informa Research Services, Inc.

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 and business products offered by more than 10,000 financial organizations nationwide, Informa Research Services, Inc., currently supports the product pricing decisions of more than 2,500 clients, representing all 50 states and including the top 25 financial institutions. This electronically transmitted competitive pricing intelligence effectively generates profitable responses to continual market changes, enables clients to effectively position deposit and loan products within local markets, maximizes interest income, and manages interest expense. Informa is the premier provider of fee and feature studies used to determine the competitiveness of fee-based services. In-depth studies are also available on cash management services, trust products, mystery shops, and other specialized services.

Informa Research Services, Inc., is a division of London-based Informa Group plc (LONDON:INF). Collectively, the business units of Informa Group plc sell to more than 121,000 delegates and 80,000 subscribers, generating annual revenues of over $283 million.