Auditing standards

Empirical criteria and editorial independence

Every benchmark on RateAudit reflects raw contractual disclosures and public regulatory filings. Commercial partners cannot purchase rank adjustments, alter repayment schedules, or suppress punitive origination terms.

Standard procedure

Four audit phases

01
02
03
04

Filing ingestion

Fee unbundling

Risk weighting

Verdict publication

Automated scrapers record daily base rates from CFPB submissions, SEC filings, and published lender disclosure schedules at six each morning.

Underwriters decompose teaser rates to isolate application fees, maintenance charges, prepayment penalties, and mandatory origination points into total capital cost.

Financial models stress-test APR schedules across prime and non-prime borrower profiles, adjusting scorecards against historical rate volatility and liquidity restrictions.

Senior analysts verify underwriting inputs against primary documentation before issuing unadjusted editorial evaluations and effective annual cost formulas.

Corporate structure

Editorial firewall charter

RateAudit separates financial research personnel from advertising sales through binding corporate bylaws. Analysts receive zero performance incentives tied to conversion volume, affiliate revenue, or merchant relationships.

Lenders reviewed on this site have no advance preview privileges and cannot appeal mathematical scores. Inaccuracies are resolved strictly through public regulatory filings or verified contract amendments.

Direct corrections

Submit rate correction

We review lender disclosure adjustments and borrower discrepancy reports within one business day. Attach primary contract filings or public fee schedule URLs for expedited analyst verification.