New Analysis from Market Rates Insight Reveals that Local Bank Branches Produce Most Deposits

(I-Newswire) August 13, 2009 - SAN ANSELMO, Calif. (August 13, 2009) � A new analysis from Market Rates Insight (MRI, www.marketratesinsight.com), a leading research firm that tracks rates for deposits, loans, and fees for financial institutions, reveals that despite the growth of online banking, there is a very strong link between the number of bank branches in each city and the deposit balances banks generate in that city. Moreover, the correlation is so strong that the report shows that the national average for adding one local branch will increase deposits by $116 million.

The analysis was conducted following the latest announcement of a 10-percent branch reduction initiative by a major national bank. The report shows that, despite the growth in remote-banking alternatives, nearly 90 percent of all bank deposits are made by people living in the region. The analysis examined the linear relationship (regression) between the numbers of branches in 371 different cities with the corresponding deposit balances in those same cities.

The findings also show that it is highly probable that changing the number of bank branches in any city will have an impact on the amount of deposits a bank has in that city - $116 million per branch on average, although this figure will vary from city to city. The raw data contains information about branches and deposit balances for 10,577 Federally-Insured institutions and was obtained from the FDIC's Summary of Deposits (October 2008).

"There is always room for right-sizing of a branch network to increase efficiency" said Dr. Dan Geller, Executive Vice President at Market Rates Insight, "however, our analysis shows that overall, the higher the number of local branches, the greater the amount of deposit balances in the same location."

The complete analysis can be viewed on the Market Rates Insight website at this location: http://marketratesinsight.com/docs/sr.pdf

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.

Contact:

Dr. Dan Geller
Market Rates Insight
415-448-8813
Dan.Geller@MarketRatesInsight.com

Tom Woolf
Market Rates Insight
(415) 259-5638
tom.woolf@marketratesinsight.com

Company Contact Information
Tom Woolf