Bankrate began as a printed newsletter called Bank Rate Monitor, that tracked what banks paid and charged. The company that filed this S-1 in March 1999 was called Intelligent Life Corporation. It ran Bankrate.com and smaller sites such as theWhiz.com and Consejero.com. Banks paid to appear in its rate tables, and advertisers paid to reach readers shopping for a mortgage or a CD. Consumers got the rates for free.

A Newsletter Turned Website

Intelligent Life was incorporated in Florida in 1993 and bought the assets of the rate-tracking business. It surveyed financial institutions for their rates and published them in print, in Bank Rate Monitor and Consumer Mortgage Guide, and then on the web. The bet was that people would compare rates online before they walked into a bank, and that lenders and advertisers would pay to be there when they did.

Three Lives on the Market

The company priced its offering at $13 a share in May 1999 and soon renamed itself, first ilife.com and then Bankrate. After the dot-com crash it narrowed its focus to Bankrate.com. Apax Partners took Bankrate private in 2009, and it returned to the stock market in 2011. In 2017 the marketing company Red Ventures bought Bankrate for about $1.4 billion.

Cover: Peacock Weather Vane, Artist unknown. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a weather vane (which way rates are blowing).