Methodology
How we source, label, and verify every fact in the directory.
Three kinds of fact
Every data point in the directory carries a source label so you know how much weight it deserves. We never blend them.
- Vendor-stated
- What the provider says about itself -headline rates, claimed settlement windows, licences it advertises. Useful as a starting point, but unverified. Treat it as a claim, not a fact.
- Independently verified
- Facts we confirmed against a primary source: a regulator’s public register, a corporate registry, or a document we could inspect. When a claim and the register disagree, we say so.
- Merchant-reported
- Aggregated from the experiences of merchants who have actually processed with the provider -real settlement times, real reserve behaviour, real fund holds. This is where claims meet reality.
Anonymity by design
Merchant reports are anonymous, and we built the database so they cannot be de-anonymised. We store no reporter name, email, or company on merchant reports -those columns do not exist. Summaries and quotes are anonymised before they are ever saved. Protecting the people who tell us the truth is the only way to keep getting it.
Our policy
Money buys visibility. It never buys veracity.
No provider can pay to change a rating, hide an incident, or alter a verification result. There are no paid placements, ever. The only thing a subscription unlocks is access -for you, the reader -to the full record.