Editorial policy
Last updated 28 August 2026
A figure appears on this site only if it has a named primary source, a retrievable identifier where the source type has one, and a date. Everything else follows from that rule.
The three tiers
| Tier | Standard | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Published | Named source, identifier (report number, media release, DOI, vendor page), and a date | Published with source and date visible |
| Flagged | Credible sources disagree, or the value changes frequently | Published with all values side by side, or marked verify before use |
| Withheld | No primary source could be located | Not published. Not softened, not attributed to "industry sources", not estimated |
Rules we apply
- Never average conflicting estimates. The mean of figures measuring different things describes nothing. Both values are published with their sources.
- Publish the gap. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says "data not found" rather than borrowing a figure from a neighbouring jurisdiction.
- Distinguish proposals from rules. A consultation paper is labelled as a consultation everywhere it appears.
- Label our own arithmetic. Where we compute something rather than cite it, the page says so.
- Preprints are labelled as preprints, and vendor claims as vendor claims.
- Date every price. Platform pricing carries a capture date and a warning that it changes.
What "data not found" means
It means we looked for a primary source and did not locate one. It does not mean the figure does not exist or that no requirement applies. An obligation may sit inside a licence condition or an unpublished rule. If you can point us at a source, we will add it and log the change.
Fabricated sources
During research we encountered a number of plausible-looking but non-existent regulatory documents — report numbers that do not exist, publications attributed to regulators that never issued them, and three mutually incompatible data series attributed to the same research firm. None of these appears on this site.
This is a live risk in this subject area. Where a widely repeated claim could not be verified, we say so explicitly on the relevant page rather than staying silent, because readers searching for that claim deserve to find out that it does not check out.
Sources we prefer
- Regulator publications with document numbers — FCA, ASIC, FMA, Bank of England, IOSCO.
- Legislation and technical standards.
- Peer-reviewed research, cited with journal, volume and date.
- Mandatory disclosures made by firms under a named rule.
- Vendor pricing pages, with a capture date.
Secondary aggregators, comparison sites and affiliate reviews are not used as sole sources for any figure.
Updates and corrections
Every page shows a publication date and a last-updated date. Material changes are logged on the corrections page rather than applied silently. The consolidated fact base, with the status of every figure, is on the data hub.
Independence
No third party reviews or approves content before publication. Commercial arrangements, where they exist, are disclosed on the how we make money page and do not affect what we publish or how a platform is described.