Market-linked CDs (MLCDs) grew faster than any other investment product sold through banks in 2011, according to the Kehrer-LIMRA monthly bank sales survey.

While revenue from managed money fees and life insurance sales soared as the year progressed, market-linked CD revenue almost tripled from the first to the fourth quarter of the year, the group said.

Kehrer-LIMRA began tracking MLCD sales in the beginning of 2011 as they started attracting mainstream attention, according to a statement. Revenues from MLCDs grew aggressively every quarter of the year with an average quarter-to-quarter growth rate of 41 percent.

Financial consultants have utilized this product for clients looking for a guarantee, but who didn’t want to miss out on the recovering market – especially in the second half of the year, the survey said.

"MLCDs fit nicely in the space that exists between regular CDs and indexed annuities, and the FDIC insurance is a big selling point," said Scott Stathis, Managing Director at Kehrer-LIMRA, based in Windsor, Conn. "This is the first time an attractive product exists that effectively spans the divide between the retail bank and the bank brokerage subsidiary."

In the first quarter, MLCDs accounted for about 2 percent of investment program revenue. By the fourth quarter, this figure was up to 5 percent.

While there is not yet a reliable figure for the total volume of MLCDs sold through banks in 2011, the banks in the Kehrer-LIMRA research sample offer a compelling view of MLCD revenue growth over the course of the past year. Banks generated $35 of MLCD revenues per million dollars of bank retail deposits in the first quarter of 2011, $48 per million in Q2, $81 per million in Q3, and $95 per million in Q4, according to Kehrer-LIMRA