How we verify and score

Every field is dated, not just every page

Most comparison sites stamp a page with “last updated” and leave it there indefinitely, even as individual fees and rates drift out of date underneath it. We date at the level of the individual fact: a monthly fee, an FX markup, a minimum transfer amount each carry their own verification date, checked against the provider’s own current pricing page. When you see a figure on this site, the date beside it is the date that specific figure was last confirmed — not when the article around it was written.

Re-verification cadence by vertical

How often a fact needs rechecking depends on how often it actually changes. We don’t run one schedule across everything:

• Neobanks & Multi-Currency Accountsevery 1 month
• Large Transfers & FX Brokersevery 3 months
• Business FX & Cross-Border Paymentsevery 3 months
• Expat & Cross-Border Tax Preparationevery 12 months
• Contractor Payments & Employer of Recordevery 3 months
• Non-Resident Company Formationevery 3 months
• Precious Metals Dealers & Vaultingevery 7 days

A figure past its window is marked as due for recheck rather than quietly left to look current. Nothing is published until it has a source and a verification date.

Scores are calculated, never typed in

Every score on this site is the output of a published rubric applied to verified attributes — a weighted function of fees, FX cost, coverage and accessibility, depending on the vertical. We never hand-enter a score. This means that when an attribute is re-verified and a figure changes, every score, ranking and “best for” list built from it updates automatically, rather than requiring a separate editorial pass to stay accurate.

We compare a scenario, not a headline rate

“Fees from 0%” is true of almost every provider in this market and tells you nothing, because the providers advertising it cap the fee-free portion and charge beyond it. So rather than ranking on a headline rate, we define a scenario, apply each provider’s own published allowance and fee to it, and compare the resulting cost.

For multi-currency accounts, that scenario is £1,500 of foreign-currency card spending in one month. A provider with no allowance and a 0.24% fee charges on all of it; a provider with a £1,000 allowance and a 1% fee charges on the remainder. The cost you see in the table is calculated, never typed in, and it carries the oldest verification date of the figures it was calculated from — because a derived number is only as current as its stalest input.

What we leave out

We only score what a provider publishes. If a figure cannot be read off the provider’s own pricing or terms page, it does not become an attribute, and it does not become part of a score. That is why you will not find a “ease of account opening” or “customer service” number here: we would have to invent it, and an invented number carried to one decimal place is the most convincing kind of wrong.

What determines ranking

Ranking is determined solely by the weighted rubric score. Commercial relationships, described in full on our disclosure page, play no part in where a provider appears in a table or list.