--- title: "RateAPI MCP Server: Credit Union Product Matching for AI" description: "Give Claude, ChatGPT, and VS Code RateAPI Routes. 89 tools connect confirmed customer facts to credit union products, membership paths, pricing, and source evidence." canonical: "https://rateapi.dev/mcp" last-updated: "2026-09-19" source: "https://rateapi.dev/llms.txt" --- # RateAPI MCP Server: Credit Union Product Matching for AI Model Context Protocol # RateAPI Routes in Any AI App Connect one confirmed customer profile to matched credit union products, published membership paths, pricing, and source evidence. MCP tools and rich UI keep the complete answer inspectable inside hosted/no-shell clients and persistent native integrations. Terminal-capable agents should start with the RateAPI CLI. [MCP Server Docs →](https://mcp.rateapi.dev) Quick Setup Last updated: September 18, 2026 ## What is the RateAPI MCP Server? The RateAPI MCP Server gives AI agents and assistants — Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code, and any MCP client — access to RateAPI Routes: confirmed customer facts, published credit union membership rules, exact lending and deposit product searches, pricing, and source evidence. Every promoted match preserves the institution source and observation date. RateAPI is an approved ChatGPT connector; MCP Apps-compatible clients can render interactive product matches, rate cards, benchmarks, and comparisons directly inside the conversation. Endpoint https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp Protocol MCP 2025-03-26 with MCP Apps UI widgets Available Tools 89 tools including financing decisions, nearby product rates, NCUA profiles and nearest-branch discovery, benchmarks, deposit/CD data, monitors, eligibility, portfolio scans, and branded rate-email campaigns Rich UI Widgets Interactive product matching, evidence drawers, rate recommendations, comparisons, credit union profiles, benchmarks, monitors, and calculations Data Freshness Daily updates from 3,700+ credit unions Setup Time 2 minutes (get API key, configure your AI app) Quick Answer ## Running Hermes Agent, OpenClaw or Grok Bot? Hermes Agent and OpenClaw have terminals, so their setup pages now start with the RateAPI CLI. Hosted Grok Bot has no shell, so it uses the remote connector. Setup pages: [Hermes Agent](https://rateapi.dev/agents/hermes-agent) , [OpenClaw](https://rateapi.dev/agents/openclaw) (CLI + SKILL.md), [Grok Bot](https://rateapi.dev/agents/grok-bot) (custom connector, remote MCP). Start at [credit union product matching for agents](https://rateapi.dev/agents) . ## What is MCP? The [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) lets AI assistants like Claude access external data sources directly. Instead of copying and pasting disconnected rate tables, Claude can query RateAPI Routes during your conversation. Claude connects confirmed facts to membership paths, exact products, and their sources. **“Which credit union products match this customer—and why?”** 💬 Get personalized auto loan recommendations with vehicle condition filters. **“Find me 60-month auto loan rates for a used car”** 🚗 Side-by-side comparison with current APRs, points, and fees. **“Compare Navy Federal vs PenFed rates”** 📊 Filtered searches across the entire dataset. **“Find mortgage rates under 6% with no points”** 🔍 MCP Apps ## Rich UI Widgets Inside Your Chat Rate data rendered as interactive cards, tables, and charts — not raw JSON. Powered by the MCP Apps standard. Rate Recommendations Shop Around Navy Federal 5.50% Pentagon FCU 5.63% Alliant CU 5.75% ### Rate Recommendations Color-coded action cards with ranked offers, confidence meter, savings estimates, and reasoning `get_financing_decision` Credit Union Profile Navy Federal CU 30yr Fixed 5.50% 15yr Fixed 4.88% ARM 5/1 5.13% ### Credit Union Profile Rates, membership eligibility, NCUA member and asset facts, reported services, branch locations, and verification timestamps `get_credit_union` Market Benchmarks 30yr Fixed 5.5-7.3% 15yr Fixed 4.9-6.5% Auto New 4.2-8.5% ### Market Benchmarks Min/median/max APR dashboard with spread indicators and lowest-rate institution badges `get_benchmarks` Monitor Status CA Rate Alert Active if rate < 6.0% if apr changes -0.25% ### Monitor Status Live status badge, trigger conditions, decision context, and webhook delivery info `get_monitor` Widgets render automatically in Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code, and other MCP Apps-compatible clients. CLI tools like Claude Code receive structured data for text-based display. [Preview widgets in your browser](https://mcp.rateapi.dev/widget/recommendations) . Quick Start ## Use MCP When the Runtime Calls for It 1 ### Terminal available? Start with the CLI This is the default for Codex, Claude Code, Hermes, OpenClaw, Grok Build, and other agents that can run shell commands. The CLI verifies the demo and checks for an existing key before asking the human to create anything. $ terminal Copy npm install - - global @rateapi / cli rateapi agent - - json To add durable guidance, preview the skill files before applying them: $ terminal Copy # Preview the files the CLI would write rateapi install - - agent codex - - dry - run # Apply after reviewing the preview rateapi install - - agent codex - - apply Choose MCP below only for a hosted/no-shell client or after explicit approval for a persistent native connection. 2 ### Create a Free API key Submit an email address to create a key. No card is required for the Free plan. $ terminal Copy # Create a free API key (email required — 20 requests/month) RATEAPI_ENROLLMENT_ID = "${RATEAPI_ENROLLMENT_ID:-$(node -e 'console.log(crypto.randomUUID())')}" ; curl - X POST https://api.rateapi.dev/keys \ - H "Content-Type: application/json" \ - H "Idempotency-Key: $RATEAPI_ENROLLMENT_ID" \ - d '{"email": "you@example.com", "source": "curl-mcp"}' Save your key securely - it can't be retrieved again. Free tier includes 20 requests/month (email required). 3a ### Connect Claude Desktop directly to MCP Add the RateAPI MCP endpoint to `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` . {} claude_desktop_config.json Copy { "mcpServers" : { "rateapi" : { "url" : "https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp" , "headers" : { "x-api-key" : "rk_your_key_here" } } } } Restart Claude Desktop after saving the config file. 3b ### Optional: persistent MCP in Claude Code Use this only after choosing persistent native tools; otherwise keep using the CLI from step 1. $ terminal Copy claude mcp add rateapi https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp \ - - transport http \ - - header "x-api-key: rk_your_key_here" 4 ### Start Asking Questions "What are the best 30-year fixed mortgage rates right now?" "Find me 72-month auto loan rates for a new 2024 SUV" "Compare Navy Federal vs Pentagon Federal mortgage rates" "What are the best used car loan rates under 5% APR?" "Find me mortgage rates under 6.5% APR with no points" "What's the credit-union median 15-year fixed rate today?" MCP Tools ## Available Commands Claude can use these tools to query mortgage, auto loan, HELOC, personal loan, and credit card rate data — and check whether you can actually join each credit union Graph-first rate routing for a person and product. Membership candidates come first; fresh evidenced rates are then grouped as reachable now, reachable after an action, unresolved, or no published offer. Unknown is never presented as unavailable. `find_reachable_offers` Primary Personalized mortgage, auto loan, HELOC, personal loan, or credit card recommendations with ranked offers and savings analysis. Pass a borrower's county, employer, military status, school, or place of worship to get membership-eligibility annotations on every offer. `get_financing_decision` Analysis Discover credit unions from a person's confirmed home, work, payroll, employer, school, association, military, family, property, facility, occupation, or open-membership facts. Returns four evidence-backed membership buckets and next questions. `find_eligible_credit_unions` Answer “can this person join?” for any credit union. Accepts county/state plus optional employer, occupation, military_status, school, and worship — returns a verdict (open to anyone, eligible via military, likely eligible, or unknown) with the verbatim membership rule, evidence link, and cost to join. Annotates, never falsely excludes. `check_membership_eligibility` New How complete and how fresh the eligibility data is, fleet-wide: institutions with live verbatim-evidenced membership rules, rules by kind, counties and employers named, verification and freshness — returned with a dated sentence an agent can quote verbatim. Enterprise Routes. `get_eligibility_coverage` New Market rate benchmarks with min/median/max APR across all institutions by product type `get_benchmarks` New Detailed rates and membership eligibility plus the latest imported NCUA quarterly profile: members, assets, founding year, reported services, and branch locations. `get_credit_union` Browse by state with rate, member, and location counts. `list_credit_unions` Find the closest NCUA-reported branch for each credit union, ordered by estimated straight-line miles from a five-digit ZIP. `find_credit_unions_near_zip` New Find APR-ranked, product-matched rates from credit unions in the nearby-branch set, with distance, freshness, and branch context. `find_product_rates_near_zip` New Data extraction statistics showing collection volumes, product coverage, and freshness `get_extraction_stats` Set up webhook alerts when rates meet specific conditions, scoped to one state, a list of states, or a region preset like East Coast `create_monitor` Subscribe an email to a rate target across any set of states — pass `states` (up to 25) or a `region` preset; the legacy single `state` still works `subscribe_rate_alert` Create a branded rate-email campaign covering one state, several states, or a region preset, ranked across everything selected `create_email_campaign` Get detailed info for a specific rate change monitor `get_monitor` View all your active rate monitoring alerts `list_monitors` Update monitor conditions, status, or webhook configuration `update_monitor` Permanently remove a rate change monitor `delete_monitor` Test monitor conditions with simulated rate changes `simulate_monitor` [Full MCP Documentation →](https://mcp.rateapi.dev) FAQ ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How do I connect RateAPI to Claude or ChatGPT? Claude Code has a terminal, so start by installing @rateapi/cli globally and running rateapi agent --json. Claude Desktop and ChatGPT are hosted/no-shell experiences, so connect https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp through their connector settings. Add MCP to a terminal host only when you explicitly want persistent native tools or rich widgets. ### What is the RateAPI MCP Server? It is the MCP interface to RateAPI Routes. AI apps like Claude, ChatGPT, and VS Code can connect confirmed customer facts to published membership rules and exact credit union products, then inspect the pricing and source evidence behind each match. Its 89 tools also cover rates, decisions, nearby institutions, benchmarks, monitors, and calculations. ### Do I need to pay to use the MCP server? A read-only subset of core Rates and calculator tools is available without an API key, and a Free key includes 20 core Rates requests per month. Creating a Free key requires an email address. RateAPI Routes tools require an authenticated Enterprise organization. ### Is the RateAPI CLI the same as the MCP connection? No. The CLI is the default execution surface for terminal-capable agents and provides stable JSON, credential reuse, and approval gates. MCP gives hosted/no-shell clients—or users who explicitly want persistent native tools—direct discovery and rich widgets. Installing a skill adds instructions only; it does not connect MCP or grant API access. ### Which AI clients support the rich UI widgets? Widgets render automatically in Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code, and other MCP Apps-compatible clients. CLI tools like Claude Code receive the same data as structured text for terminal display. ### Can it tell me whether I am eligible to join a credit union? Yes. Use find_reachable_offers when the person has named a product: it builds the institution candidate set from positive membership-graph evidence before intersecting fresh, evidenced rates. Use find_eligible_credit_unions for membership-only discovery, or check_membership_eligibility for named institutions. Unknown is never treated as no, and published pricing is not approval or guaranteed final availability. ### Is there an MCP server for financial rate data and loan rates? Yes — RateAPI runs one at https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp (streamable HTTP). It is an MCP server for US loan and deposit rate data: mortgage, auto, RV, boat, motorcycle, HELOC, personal, student and credit-card APRs plus savings, money market and CD APYs, re-observed daily from 3,700+ credit unions. It also exposes membership eligibility, credit union profiles, benchmarks, and financing-decision math as tools. It is listed in the RateAPI manifest at https://rateapi.dev/.well-known/mcp and works with Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code and any MCP-compatible client. ### How do I ground an LLM answer in live rate data? Give the model a tool that returns the rate, the institution, the observed date and a link to the source page, and instruct it to quote all four. That is what every RateAPI MCP tool returns: each rate carries its as_of timestamp and the institution’s page, rates that cannot be evidenced from that page are not served, and rates outside the freshness window are suppressed rather than served stale. A grounded answer then reads "6.125% APR at , observed , per its published rate sheet" instead of a number with no provenance. Benchmarks come back as credit-union medians, so the model never has to invent a "national average". ### Is there a smaller tool list for a personal agent? Yes. Connect to https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp?profile=personal and the server advertises only the consumer surface — 24 tools, in the order of the reachable-rate loop: extract_eligibility_facts, search_eligibility_entities, resolve_eligibility_entities, find_eligible_credit_unions, get_personal_access_catalog, compare_personal_access_catalogs, find_reachable_offers, compare_reachable_offers, check_membership_eligibility, get_financing_decision, find_product_rates_near_zip, find_credit_unions_near_zip, get_credit_union, rate_sanity_check, get_benchmarks, get_deposit_benchmarks, subscribe_rate_alert, unsubscribe_rate_alert, estimate_affordability, refinance_break_even, compare_total_cost, get_eligibility_coverage, search_docs, get_doc. The profile filters what is advertised, not what is callable, and its initialize instructions describe the loop. Drop the query string for the full registry. ### How do I give an AI agent access to real financial product data? If it has a terminal, install @rateapi/cli and run rateapi agent --json. If it has no shell, connect the RateAPI MCP Server, which exposes 89 source-backed tools. If you are building the agent loop in application code, call https://api.rateapi.dev over REST. Explore the full RateAPI platform: see live [mortgage rates](https://rateapi.dev/mortgage-rates) and [auto loan rates](https://rateapi.dev/auto-loan-rates) , compare the [mortgage rate benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/mortgage-rate-benchmark) , or read the [data methodology](https://rateapi.dev/methodology) . ## Ready to get started? Get your API key and connect RateAPI to Claude in under 2 minutes. Get a Free API Key [Back to Home](https://rateapi.dev/) RateAPI RateAPI Routes turns confirmed customer facts into source-backed shortlists of published products from 3,700+ tracked US credit unions. Every promoted route keeps its membership and price evidence. Get API key → [Sign in](https://app.rateapi.dev) ### Build - [RateAPI Routes →](https://rateapi.dev/routes) - [Product Matching API](https://rateapi.dev/financial-product-eligibility-api) - [Membership Eligibility API](https://rateapi.dev/api/eligibility) - [Rate Query API](https://rateapi.dev/rates-api) - [Decision API](https://rateapi.dev/api/reference) - [Batch Decisions API](https://rateapi.dev/api/batch-decisions) ### Deliver - [Developer Portal →](https://rateapi.dev/developers) - [REST API docs](https://api.rateapi.dev/) - [OpenAPI spec](https://api.rateapi.dev/openapi.json) - [MCP Server](https://rateapi.dev/mcp) - [Widget builder](https://rateapi.dev/widget-builder) - [RateAPI Routes widget](https://rateapi.dev/widget-docs/routes) - [Market Rates widget](https://rateapi.dev/widget-docs/rates) - [Webhooks](https://api.rateapi.dev/webhooks) - [Versioning & deprecation](https://rateapi.dev/deprecation-policy) - [GitHub](https://github.com/rate-api) ### Solutions - [Personal finance apps](https://rateapi.dev/use-cases/personal-finance-apps) - [AI purchase advisors](https://rateapi.dev/use-cases/ai-purchasing-tools) - [AI agents](https://rateapi.dev/use-cases/ai-agents) - [Car buying platforms](https://rateapi.dev/use-cases/car-buying-platforms) - [Credit unions](https://rateapi.dev/for-credit-unions) - [Loan officers](https://rateapi.dev/use-cases/loan-officers) - [Rate data for ALM](https://rateapi.dev/alm-rate-data) ### Trust - [Data coverage](https://rateapi.dev/data-coverage) - [Rate methodology](https://rateapi.dev/methodology) - [Eligibility methodology](https://rateapi.dev/eligibility-methodology) - [Transparency](https://rateapi.dev/transparency) - [Independence](https://rateapi.dev/independence) - [Corrections](https://rateapi.dev/corrections) - [Pricing](https://rateapi.dev/pricing) - [About](https://rateapi.dev/about) - [Contact](https://rateapi.dev/contact) - Talk to a human ### Inspect the data behind the API Public data explorer - [Current mortgage rates](https://rateapi.dev/current-mortgage-rates) - [Current auto rates](https://rateapi.dev/current-auto-loan-rates) - [Current CD rates](https://rateapi.dev/current-cd-rates) - [Current HELOC rates](https://rateapi.dev/current-heloc-rates) - [Current personal loan rates](https://rateapi.dev/current-personal-loan-rates) - [Mortgage rates](https://rateapi.dev/mortgage-rates) - [Refinance rates](https://rateapi.dev/refinance-rates) - [Auto loan rates](https://rateapi.dev/auto-loan-rates) - [RV loan rates](https://rateapi.dev/rv-loan-rates) - [Boat rates](https://rateapi.dev/boat-loan-rates) - [Motorcycle rates](https://rateapi.dev/motorcycle-loan-rates) - [HELOC rates](https://rateapi.dev/heloc-rates) - [Personal loan rates](https://rateapi.dev/personal-loan-rates) - [Credit card rates](https://rateapi.dev/credit-card-rates) - [Deposit rates](https://rateapi.dev/deposit-rates) - [CD rates](https://rateapi.dev/cd-rates) - [Savings rates](https://rateapi.dev/savings-rates) - [Money market rates](https://rateapi.dev/money-market-rates) - [Credit union directory](https://rateapi.dev/credit-unions) - [Who can join](https://rateapi.dev/who-can-join) - [Mortgage benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/mortgage-rate-benchmark) - [Auto benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/auto-loan-rate-benchmark) - [HELOC benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/heloc-rate-benchmark) - [Personal loan benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/personal-loan-rate-benchmark) - [CD benchmark](https://rateapi.dev/cd-rate-benchmark) - [Credit union rate index](https://rateapi.dev/credit-union-rate-index) - [Deposit beta](https://rateapi.dev/deposit-beta) - [Credit unions vs banks: mortgage](https://rateapi.dev/compare/credit-union-vs-bank-rates) - [Credit unions vs banks: auto](https://rateapi.dev/compare/credit-union-vs-bank-auto-loan-rates) - [Credit unions vs banks: HELOC](https://rateapi.dev/compare/credit-union-vs-bank-heloc-rates) - [Credit unions vs banks: CD](https://rateapi.dev/compare/credit-union-vs-bank-cd-rates) - [Mortgage rate API comparison](https://rateapi.dev/compare/mortgage-rate-apis) - [Rate datasets](https://rateapi.dev/credit-union-rate-dataset) © 2026 RateAPI · US credit unions only · Published pricing is not approval. [Privacy](https://rateapi.dev/privacy) [Terms](https://rateapi.dev/terms) [llms.txt](https://rateapi.dev/llms.txt) --- Source: https://rateapi.dev/mcp Rate data API: https://api.rateapi.dev · OpenAPI: https://api.rateapi.dev/openapi.json · MCP: https://mcp.rateapi.dev/mcp