This page explains exactly how the information on Financessentials is produced, checked and corrected. We publish it because in personal finance the process matters as much as the conclusion — and because it lets you hold us to a standard rather than trust us on faith.
Our source hierarchy
When sources disagree, we use them in this order:
- The lender’s own published disclosure. For any rate, fee, loan amount, term or eligibility requirement attributed to a specific lender, we open that lender’s rate or disclosure page and read it. We do not take these figures from other comparison sites, because those figures are frequently copied between publishers and go stale.
- US federal regulators and official statistics. The Federal Reserve G.19 release for average finance rates, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for consumer rights and complaint data, the FTC for fraud guidance, the IRS for tax treatment.
- Established financial press, for market events such as an acquisition or a lender withdrawing a product — cited by name and linked.
We do not cite other comparison sites as authorities for lender data. Where we mention what other publishers say, it is to flag a discrepancy we found, not to borrow their number.
Dating and re-verification
Any article containing lender-specific figures carries a “last verified” date at the top. That date means a person opened each lender’s disclosure page on that day and confirmed every figure in the article.
We re-verify those articles at least once a month. If a figure has changed, we update it and move the date forward. If a lender has stopped offering a product, we remove it from our recommendations and say so explicitly rather than quietly deleting it — because a reader who searched for that product deserves to know what happened to it.
Articles that contain no lender-specific figures — explanations of how APR works, for instance — are reviewed at least twice a year.
How we calculate
All monthly payment and total interest figures are produced with the standard fixed-rate amortization formula, where P is the amount borrowed, r the monthly interest rate and n the number of payments:
Payment = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)−n)
Where a lender publishes its own worked payment example, we reproduce it with our formula and confirm the two agree before publishing anything else based on that lender’s figures. When they don’t agree, we investigate why before we write — that check is how we came to explain the difference between the interest rate that sets your monthly payment and the APR that includes the origination fee.
Figures are rounded to the cent and we state the loan amount, term and rate behind every calculation so you can reproduce it yourself.
Independence and how we make money
Financessentials earns money from display advertising only. We accept no commission, affiliate revenue, referral fee or payment from any lender we write about. No lender can pay for inclusion, for a higher ranking, or to have a criticism removed. Advertisers see no editorial content before publication and have no input into it.
This is unusual in our field and it is deliberate. Most comparison sites earn a commission when a reader clicks through to a lender, which makes it commercially awkward to publish a section explaining why a reader should avoid that lender. We publish those sections.
What we will not publish
- Personalized financial advice. We explain how products work and what they cost. We do not tell any individual what to do with their money. We are not licensed advisors.
- A lender’s figures we could not verify at source. If we can’t find it on the lender’s own disclosure, we either leave it out or say plainly that it is unverified.
- Products above 36% APR. We exclude payday and similar high-cost credit from our recommendations, in line with the threshold used by the Military Lending Act and consumer advocacy groups.
- Invented expertise. We do not attribute articles to fictional experts or claim credentials we don’t hold.
Corrections policy
If you believe something on this site is wrong, tell us through our contact page. We check the claim against the lender’s own disclosure or the relevant official source.
If we were wrong, we correct the article and update its verification date. Where the error was material — a rate, a fee, an eligibility requirement, or a recommendation of a product that isn’t available — we note the correction in the article rather than changing it silently.
Who writes this
Articles carry the Financessentials Editorial Team byline. That team is the two founders of Financessentials, who run it from Madrid, Spain, with editorial support. We use a team byline rather than individual credits because research, writing and fact-checking are shared on every article — not because we are hiding who we are. We are not US-based and not licensed financial advisors, which is precisely why every factual claim on this site is sourced, dated and linked. You can read more about us on our About Us page.