Our Founder
The journalist who decided rate data belonged to everyone
In 1982, the financial data that shaped American lives lived behind the closed doors of industry trade journals. Robert Heady, a journalist by trade, recognized this as a problem for people. What he built to fix it became Bankrate — putting real rate data in everyone’s hands. Decades later, we’re still at it.
Robert K. Heady, Bankrate founder
My goal was simple: give the little guy a break.
Robert K. Heady, Founder
A journalist who saw a public service hiding in the data
When interest rate deregulation swept through American banking in the early 1980s, banks could suddenly compete for deposits and loans. For people, it was chaos — with no reliable way to compare rates across hundreds of institutions, most people went with whoever was nearby. Most people overpaid.
Robert K. Heady, a veteran journalist, saw what others missed: the most important financial data in America was locked inside industry publications that ordinary people never read. He founded the Bank Rate Monitor newsletter in 1982 to put that data in plain English and in everyone’s hands.
Over four decades. One mission.
1982 — The newsletter that became the standard
What started as a print publication quickly became the data source the financial industry relied on. When The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal needed to verify mortgage or savings rates, they called Robert Heady. The data was trusted because it was independent.
1996 — Taking transparency online
With the launch of Bankrate.com, the mission moved from weekly print updates to real-time transparency. For the first time, any person — regardless of their wealth or connections — had access to the same quality of financial data as a Wall Street professional. The playing field had been leveled.
Today — The same north star
The financial world has grown vastly more complex since 1982. Today, Bankrate goes beyond tracking rates — we create the competition that drives them down, publish the research that exposes overpayment, and hold the industry accountable through journalism that answers to readers, not lenders. The name and platform have changed. The mission hasn't.
1982
Year the Bank Rate Monitor was founded
850+
Financial institutions tracked annually
$65B
Drained annually by above-market mortgage pricing
100M+
Americans who use Bankrate every year
What Robert K. Heady started in 1982 is still the most radical thing about Bankrate today
The mortgage market costs American homeowners $65 billion a year in above-market pricing. Not through fraud. Not through deception. Through a default process — a referral, a relationship, a first quote accepted before anyone looked further — that routes most borrowers away from the most competitive rate available to them.
Bankrate is built to fix that. We are still researchers, and still committed to the journalistic integrity Robert Heady demanded from day one. The same instinct that put rates in a newsletter in 1982 now powers a platform that surfaces rates 99.7% of banks can’t beat.
Built on the journalist’s instinct
Heady’s background in journalism shaped everything about how Bankrate operates. Data had to be verified. Conclusions had to be earned. Editorial and commercial interests had to be kept apart. Those aren’t values on a wall — they’re structural commitments baked into how we publish, how lenders compete on our platform, and how we’re compensated.
Four decades on, the little guy is still who we work for.
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