Bernanke acknowledges that low interest rates could impair financial stability

NEW YORK, Feb. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- RateWatch, a premier banking data and analytics service owned by TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST) reported today that interest rates for savings products remained the same over the previous week with the national average on a 4-year and 5-year CD decreasing by 0.01 percent based on data collected from over 90,000 financial institution locations.

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CD rates have generally remained unchanged at record-low levels. The Federal Reserve has continued to keep the short-term federal funds rate at a range of zero to 0.25% since late 2008. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress on Tuesday suggested that the central bank would continue to keep interest-rates low. Bernanke also acknowledged that the policy-making wing of the Fed understands that low interest rates for a "considerable" amount of time could impair financial stability.

TheStreet's economist, Joe Deaux, states, "Bernanke's comments led economists and analysts to suggest that the central bank's highly accommodative monetary policy would remain in effect at least through 2013, which is a pivot in sentiment from last week's Fed announcement that "many" central bank members thought monetary stimulus should begin to scale back during 2013. Status quo purchasing of $85 billion a month in longer-term Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities would likely extend the Fed's commitment to keep interest rates low."

NATIONAL AVERAGE RESULTS - $10K

TOP RATE ISSUERS - $10K

This is a list of issuers with top interest rates.  The issuer's Financial Strength Rating is an independent, unbiased evaluation of quarterly regulatory statements.

Institutions are assigned a letter grade of A-E with "A" representing the highest rating based on a review of many aspects of financial safety including capitalization, asset quality, profitability and liquidity.

For more information, visit www.weissratings.com/help/what-our-ratings-mean.aspx.  

Information is believed to be accurate, but not guaranteed.

Data is surveyed weekly with averages calculated each Monday afternoon from RateWatch's unbiased national interest rate survey of over 90,000 financial institution locations across the United States.

About RateWatch 
For over 20 years, RateWatch has been the premier provider of competitive interest rate and product information to financial institutions across the United States.  Consistently providing top quality, highly relevant data RateWatch maintains the largest database in the industry with deposit, loan, and fee information monitoring over 90,000 locations. Rate surveys, product comparisons, financial strength reporting, local/regional/national averages, fee reporting, specialty reports and more are available.  To learn more about RateWatch, visit www.rate-watch.com.  RateWatch is a division of TheStreet, Inc.

About TheStreet 
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Contact:

Erin Corcoran 
TheStreet, Inc.
212-321-5566  
[email protected]

SOURCE TheStreet