How the registry works
Every published fact needs a paper trail.
Banking Registry separates what an institution officially discloses from what applicants and customers observe. Those are different kinds of evidence, and the site never presents one as the other.
Pipeline
From source to static page.
- 01
Discover
A regulatory, official, community, forum, or transcript source is identified and classified by what it can establish.
- 02
Capture
The raw artifact is archived immutably with its URL, retrieval time, content hash, media type, and source-use metadata.
- 03
Structure
Rates, fees, deadlines, issuer roles, eligibility, and unknown values become separate typed facts. “VERIFY” in a spreadsheet cell becomes a null plus an unverified status, never a number.
- 04
Review
New, conflicting, unverified, and high-impact claims are reviewed by a person. Automated extraction only proposes; it never publishes.
- 05
Publish
A claim publishes only when it is accepted, verified, backed by accepted evidence, and free of open conflicts. The static site is rebuilt from that projection.
- 06
Monitor
Each field class has a freshness expectation. Promotions recheck weekly; membership rules monthly; regulatory identity on regulator release.
Evidence states
What each label on this site means.
Confidence is claim-specific, not a permanent score attached to a website or creator. It considers source class, first-person versus second-hand evidence, recency, corroboration, and human verification.
- Verified
Accepted evidence and a current verification event exist.
- Stale
Verified once, but past its field-specific freshness window. Shown, flagged, and queued for recheck.
- Conflict
Two sources disagree, or an official rule contradicts observed outcomes. Both remain linked until resolved or contextualized.
- Observed
A dated community, forum, or transcript observation. Useful for bureau pulls and limits; never an issuer guarantee.
- Not captured
The registry has no accepted claim for this field. It is not a zero and not a “no.”
Evidence boundaries
Official terms are not community outcomes.
Sources are classified by what they can establish, not by a single universal reputation score.
- Regulators and datasets
- FDIC BankFind and NCUA data establish institution identity, charter, insurance, and financial records.
- Official disclosures
- Issuer pricing pages, agreements, membership pages, and benefits guides establish APRs, fees, eligibility, and application routes. CFPB terms surveys are a baseline, not the sole current-terms source.
- Observed outcomes
- Dated first-person reports, redacted evidence, and timestamped transcripts establish bureau pulls, starting limits, reconsideration, and reporting behavior. Published only as typed aggregates with sample size and window.
- Research notes
- Spreadsheet research is a lead, never a published fact. Every imported row keeps its workbook, sheet, row, and original text, and stays quarantined until accepted.
Privacy and honesty rules
If the source does not establish a term, the registry says so. It does not guess.
- Numeric fields contain numbers, never prose. Units and date semantics are explicit.
- Actual issuer and program family are resolved or visibly unknown. Personal membership never implies business availability.
- Community records are anonymous by default; public pages use bands and aggregates, and small cohorts are suppressed.
- The registry never collects Social Security numbers, account numbers, credentials, full birth dates, or unredacted credit reports.
- No affiliate placement. Ordering is by the value you sort on, or by name.
- Static output is rebuilt from the verified database projection; nothing is edited in a page template.