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🏦 Banking & Money

How we verify banking & money data

How living-abroad.org sources, tiers and re-verifies banking & money data — tier-1 origins only, dated, confidence-rated, human-reviewed.

Source hierarchy

Every number originates from a Tier-1 source. Tier-2 sources are used only to interpret a Tier-1 text, never as the origin of a figure. Tier-3 (blogs, forums, aggregators) is never cited.

Tier 1 — origin of any figure

  • Financial regulator
  • Provider terms
  • Provider pricing
  • Central bank

Tier 2 — interpretation only

  • Media

Rules we enforce

  • Headline figures: every headline datapoint must have at least one Tier-1 source, or it is left null and flagged low confidence.
  • Aggregated indices: not permitted — they may not back any figure in this topic.
  • Re-verification cadence: every record is re-checked at least every 120 days (sooner for low-confidence records); an overdue high-confidence record fails our build until a human re-verifies it.
  • Human gate: a record is only treated as editor-confirmed once our editor has checked it against the Tier-1 source. Records that aren't yet editor-confirmed are still published openly — but always with their full source list, the date they were last checked and a confidence badge showing how sure we are — so you can weigh the evidence yourself rather than us hiding work in progress.

What this means for you

Not financial advice — check the provider is licensed in your country.

See the site-wide methodology for how this fits our overall research and verification process, or the editorial policy for who reviews it.