Source hierarchy
AppLoans gives priority to original publications from government agencies, financial regulators, central banks, deposit insurers and other public institutions. Where a primary research paper is available, we prefer it over news coverage or a secondary summary. Academic research can supplement the library when it materially answers a question not addressed by primary regulator data.
Evidence-strength labels
Strong
Used when the source is directly relevant and has a broad empirical base—for example, a nationally representative household survey or substantial market dataset collected by a regulator. Strong does not mean flawless: sampling, definitions, time period and product coverage still matter.
Moderate
Used for useful empirical material with important limits on generalization. Examples include consumer complaint data, surveys whose sampling excludes part of the market, or regulator datasets covering only participating firms.
Contextual
Used for authoritative consumer guidance, legal explanations, enforcement actions and scam alerts. These sources are valuable for identifying rules or risk patterns, but they generally cannot tell us how common a behavior is across the population.
Recency and regulatory changes
Consumer-credit rules change. Every summary identifies the publication period and, where relevant, flags when underlying observations predate a major legal or market change. A current webpage can still contain older survey data, so AppLoans separates the page-update date from the date of the evidence itself.
Complaint data are not prevalence data
Complaint databases reveal what people report and which issues recur. They do not provide a random sample of all borrowers. A rise in complaints can reflect changes in market size, awareness, reporting channels or company practices. We therefore use complaint evidence to describe issue patterns, not to estimate the percentage of borrowers affected.
Research summaries versus legal guidance
Evidence pages explain research. Regulatory pages explain current rules. The two are linked but kept distinct because a study can be historically important even after a law changes, and a current law does not tell us how borrowers actually behave.
Corrections and review
If a primary source is revised, withdrawn or superseded, the relevant AppLoans page should be reviewed. Material regulatory pages and evidence summaries are also candidates for scheduled review when a source is time-sensitive.