NEOBANKDB
Market: US

Evidence governance / Public decision guide

A status is a boundary, not a score.

NeobankDB keeps source authority, claim verification, observation date, freshness, confidence, conflict and publication approval separate. A regulator page can be highly authoritative but irrelevant to a provider’s exact product. A current provider help page can support a narrow condition without proving a global feature. A high-confidence fact can later become stale. None of those states ranks a company or predicts an individual outcome.

20 reviewed definitions cover 8 evidence families and 6 publication effects. Every definition records its meaning, evidence requirement, publication decision, review trigger, governing rule, reviewed date and confidence treatment.

applicability1defined states
availability1defined states
confidence4defined states
conflict2defined states
freshness2defined states
scope2defined states
source lifecycle3defined states
verification5defined states

Non-negotiable gate

A crawler or model cannot approve a fact.

Automated collection can discover a URL, retain a snapshot and propose a candidate field. It cannot decide that the subject, legal entity, product, plan, market, value, date and scope are correct. Candidate facts remain private until runtime schema validation, source ranking, market scoping, relationship checks, conflict analysis and human approval all pass.

The public site reads approved publication views. When a required record is missing or invalid, the interface shows an empty, stale, error or unavailable state. It does not borrow a neighboring market, infer a provider feature from market infrastructure, convert silence into “unsupported,” or invent a replacement citation.

Publication sequence

Five gates separate discovery from public copy.

Each gate answers a different question; passing one never bypasses the next.

  1. 01

    Candidate

    Preserve the original source, snapshot, extraction provenance and proposed claim. Nothing is public merely because a parser produced a well-formed value.

  2. 02

    Validate

    Check the schema, exact subject chain, market, product, plan, normalised value, displayed value, source, observation date, effective date and required evidence metadata.

  3. 03

    Compare

    Rank source authority, compare active and candidate facts, preserve differences in scope and expose credible disagreement. Newer does not automatically mean better.

  4. 04

    Approve

    A reviewer accepts, rejects or holds the candidate. High-risk licence, protection, closure, availability, fee and route claims always require review.

  5. 05

    Publish

    Rebuild the approved view and affected pages with visible source, date, status and confidence. Keep prior approved records when history or unresolved freshness matters.

Evidence-state filters

Find the decision boundary.

20 of 20 evidence definitionsPage 1 of 3 · 8 definitions per page
  1. not_applicableapplicability

    claim record

    Not applicable

    The field does not apply to the exact product type, legal relationship or mechanism being described.

    publishscheduled
    State
    not_applicable
    Family
    applicability
    Publication
    publish
    Review urgency
    scheduled
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Establish the product classification and explain why the field's premise does not apply; do not use this state as a substitute for missing research.

    Review trigger: Review if the product classification, legal entity or feature set changes.

    Confidence treatment: Confidence applies to the classification and applicability conclusion, not to an absent numeric value.

    Governing rules: docs/FINANCIAL-DATA-RULES.md#fact-language · .claude/rules/financial-data.md

    Read evidence methodology
  2. unavailableavailability

    publication record

    Unavailable

    Required approved data or a repository response cannot be rendered safely at request time. This is a delivery state, not evidence that a product is unsupported.

    render unavailable stateimmediate
    State
    unavailable
    Family
    availability
    Publication
    render unavailable state
    Review urgency
    immediate
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Expose a clear unavailable or error state, preserve the last approved data boundary and avoid substitute facts or inferred results.

    Review trigger: A required dataset is missing, invalid, duplicated, inaccessible or fails relationship validation.

    Confidence treatment: No confidence inference is made from delivery failure. Existing record confidence remains attached to the underlying record only.

    Governing rules: AGENTS.md#engineering · .claude/rules/financial-data.md

    Read evidence methodology
  3. not_assessedconfidence

    claim record

    Confidence not assessed

    No reviewed confidence judgment is available for the claim.

    do not publishbefore publication
    State
    not_assessed
    Family
    confidence
    Publication
    do not publish
    Review urgency
    before publication
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Keep source-free or unreviewed records explicitly unassessed; do not backfill a confidence label from model output or neighboring facts.

    Review trigger: A reviewer evaluates complete evidence metadata for the exact scoped claim.

    Confidence treatment: Not assessed is a missing review decision, not zero confidence and not evidence that the claim is false.

    Governing rules: .claude/rules/financial-data.md · packages/data/src/index.ts#assertEvidenceMetadata

    Read evidence methodology
  4. highconfidence

    claim record

    High confidence

    The exact scoped claim has strong, current and internally consistent evidence after review.

    publishscheduled
    State
    high
    Family
    confidence
    Publication
    publish
    Review urgency
    scheduled
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Require current authoritative evidence, complete scope and dates, no unresolved material conflict and reviewer approval.

    Review trigger: Review when freshness, scope, source authority or conflict conditions change.

    Confidence treatment: This is an evidence-completeness label, not a probability, provider score, ranking or promise of user outcome.

    Governing rules: docs/FINANCIAL-DATA-RULES.md#minimum-fact-record · .claude/rules/financial-data.md

    Read evidence methodology
  5. lowconfidence

    claim record

    Low confidence

    Evidence exists for the scoped claim but has substantial authority, completeness, freshness or conflict limitations.

    hold for reviewbefore publication
    State
    low
    Family
    confidence
    Publication
    hold for review
    Review urgency
    before publication
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Retain the evidence and every limiting condition; high-risk material facts require stronger evidence and approval before public use.

    Review trigger: Obtain stronger or more current primary evidence and resolve the recorded limitations.

    Confidence treatment: Low is not a negative quality judgment and does not authorize speculative copy.

    Governing rules: docs/FINANCIAL-DATA-RULES.md#minimum-fact-record · docs/MASTER-BLUEPRINT.md#publication-model

    Read evidence methodology
  6. mediumconfidence

    claim record

    Medium confidence

    The scoped claim has useful reviewed support, but a material evidence boundary reduces completeness or certainty.

    publish with conditionsscheduled
    State
    medium
    Family
    confidence
    Publication
    publish with conditions
    Review urgency
    scheduled
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Name the limiting boundary, retain supporting sources and dates, and keep the claim no broader than the evidence.

    Review trigger: Seek the missing primary source, refreshed source, scope detail or conflict resolution named in the record.

    Confidence treatment: Medium does not mean a 50% likelihood and cannot be used to rank providers.

    Governing rules: docs/FINANCIAL-DATA-RULES.md#minimum-fact-record · .claude/rules/financial-data.md

    Read evidence methodology
  7. conflictingconflict

    claim record

    Conflicting

    Credible sources disagree about the same scoped fact and the disagreement has not been resolved.

    hold for reviewimmediate
    State
    conflicting
    Family
    conflict
    Publication
    hold for review
    Review urgency
    immediate
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Preserve each source, value, date, authority, scope and the exact point of disagreement for reviewer analysis.

    Review trigger: A credible current source contradicts an active or candidate fact.

    Confidence treatment: Do not average sources or invent a consensus probability. Confidence remains claim-specific and conflict-aware.

    Governing rules: docs/FINANCIAL-DATA-RULES.md#fact-language · docs/MASTER-BLUEPRINT.md#publication-model

    Read evidence methodology
  8. supersededconflict

    publication record

    Superseded

    A reviewed newer record replaces an older approved record without implying that the older record was false at its observation date.

    retain prior approved recordnone
    State
    superseded
    Family
    conflict
    Publication
    retain prior approved record
    Review urgency
    none
    Reviewed
    2026-07-13
    Review evidence and decision rules

    Required evidence: Link old and new records, preserve both observation or effective dates, record the reviewer decision and explain the replacement boundary.

    Review trigger: A newer approved fact is activated after explicit comparison with the prior active fact.

    Confidence treatment: The replacement receives its own confidence assessment; the prior record keeps its historical evidence metadata.

    Governing rules: docs/MASTER-BLUEPRINT.md#publication-model · docs/MASTER-BLUEPRINT.md#firecrawl-and-enrichment-design

    Read evidence methodology

Separate axes

The same evidence can answer one axis and fail another.

These pairs are deliberately independent in schemas, repositories and public copy.

Authority ≠ confidence

A strong publisher can support a weakly scoped claim.

Source authority ranks the type of source: regulator register, legal agreement, protection scheme, fee schedule, help centre and so on. Confidence assesses the exact claim after relevance, completeness, date and conflicts are considered. A regulator is authoritative about its own register, but its page may not establish a provider’s fee, account feature or customer eligibility.

Verification ≠ freshness

A previously verified fact can become stale.

Verification records whether evidence supports the claim. Freshness compares the source observation with the field’s review window. The record must preserve its last approved value and date when the window expires, while the interface makes the stale boundary visible and triggers review.

Approval ≠ permanence

Approved means publishable now, not true forever.

Approval reflects a reviewed decision at a point in time. Terms, entities, licences, limits, product availability and routes can change. Change signals reopen review; a new candidate still needs validation and comparison before it supersedes the prior record.

Confidence ≠ probability

High does not mean a guaranteed outcome.

High, medium and low describe evidence support for a scoped fact. They are not numerical probabilities, provider ratings, product rankings or predictions that an application, transfer, dispute, coverage claim or recovery will succeed for an individual user.

Negative and missing states

“No” requires evidence. Missing data does not.

Unsupported, unknown, research required, unavailable and not applicable are not softer versions of the same answer. They describe different evidence and publication decisions. Collapsing them would turn a system limitation into an external product claim.

Unsupported

A current primary source explicitly says the exact scoped product, route or method does not work. Direction, market and transaction method matter. This can be a publishable negative fact when fully evidenced.

Unknown

Evidence is insufficient. The correct public behavior is to preserve the gap, not guess yes or no from a compatible rail, a related product or a marketing summary.

Research required

The record is explicitly not ready for public factual use. It names the unresolved proof and stays outside the approved publication view until research and approval finish.

Unavailable

The repository or required approved data cannot render safely. The interface reports the delivery failure. It does not assert that the provider or feature is unavailable in the market.

Not applicable

The field’s premise does not fit the exact product type or legal relationship. For example, a fixed deposit-insurance cap does not describe an activity-specific safeguarding duty. Classification evidence is still required.

Conflict handling

Conflicting and superseded records preserve different histories.

Neither state authorizes silent deletion or an averaged answer.

Conflicting

Two credible claims disagree now.

Store each source, value, authority, observation date, effective date and scope. Check whether the apparent conflict is actually a product, market, entity, customer class or time difference. If the same scoped fact still disagrees, hold the candidate or expose the conflict clearly. Do not choose the friendlier number, average limits or let publication order decide.

Superseded

A newer approved record replaces an older one.

Superseded is a reviewed publication relationship. The older record can remain accurate for its historical observation or effective period. Link old and new, retain both dates and record the approval that activated the replacement. This supports an audit trail without presenting history as a current claim.

Scope inheritance

Market evidence cannot promote itself into a provider fact.

Provider and market records need separate subjects, sources and confidence decisions.

Regulator

A regulator directory establishes jurisdiction and supervised activities. It does not prove that every firm in the market holds every licence or that a named product sits inside each perimeter.

Protection scheme

A scheme establishes mechanism, administrator, eligible subjects and limits. Provider coverage still requires the exact entity, membership, product, ownership and failure path.

Payment rail

A rail establishes market infrastructure. Provider participation, customer access, direction, limits, cutoff, fees, posting and intermediary use require provider evidence.

Provider record

A provider-level claim stays attached to its legal entity, product, plan, market and date. It does not become global because the same brand operates elsewhere.

Confidence labels

Assess evidence, never the company.

LabelEvidence meaningNot allowed
HighStrong, current, internally consistent evidence for the exact claim.Guarantee, probability or provider ranking.
MediumUseful reviewed support with a named completeness or scope boundary.A 50% estimate or permission to omit conditions.
LowEvidence exists but has substantial authority, freshness, completeness or conflict limits.Speculative public copy for high-risk material facts.
Not assessedNo reviewed confidence decision exists.Zero confidence, false, unsupported or model-generated backfill.

Follow the evidence

Inspect the rule, then the source.

Use the methodology for the review workflow, the source directory for approved source records, the conflict ledger for active disagreements, the changes ledger for publication history, and the regulator, protection and rail directories for market-scoped evidence. None of those directories substitutes for the exact provider-level claim.