About

Veracent Intelligence publishes evidence records on UK financial firms. Every finding quotes the document it came from and links to it, so a reader can check the work rather than take it on trust.

What this is

Deciding whether to trust a financial firm with your money, or your clients’ money, means reading registers, filed accounts and binding agreements. That work is possible — every source used here is public — but it takes a day per firm and produces something nobody else can audit.

These records do that work once and publish it with the evidence attached. Fifty-six questions, asked of every firm, answered only where a qualifying source says so.

What this is not

It is not a rating. There is no score, no letter grade and no ranking, because any single figure would require weighting one thing against another — a judgement that cannot be evidenced and would convert a factual statement about research into an opinion about a company.

It is not advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to use a firm or to avoid one, and Veracent Intelligence is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

It is not a complaints service. If you have a dispute with a firm, the Financial Ombudsman Service is the body that can help.

How a report is produced

Evidence is collected from statutory registers, filings and the firm’s own binding documents, and weighted by where it came from: a regulator’s register counts for more than a marketing page. Every claim records the passage it rests on, and a claim whose quoted passage cannot be found in its source is never stored.

Before publication each report is checked twice — once by rules that run the same way every time, and once by a review that reads every finding against its quoted passage and can only object, never approve. Objections are recorded whether they are accepted or overruled, and a report that does not meet the evidence thresholds is withheld rather than published with caveats.

The methodology sets this out in full, including the arithmetic behind every figure, and the criteria list every question asked and what evidence is required to answer it.

Getting things wrong

This research will contain errors. What matters is what happens when one is found: it is corrected, the correction is published, and where a report stops meeting the standard it claims, it is withdrawn until it does. The corrections log records every one, including reports taken down.

A firm that believes a finding is wrong can write to corrections@veracentintelligence.co.uk. We will provide the evidence behind any finding, correct what we get wrong, and publish a statement of up to 300 words alongside anything we still disagree about.

Who does this

Veracent Intelligence is the work of Amaan Bhana, based in the United Kingdom. It is self-funded. It takes no payment, advertising or commission from the firms it writes about, and it never will — a record of what a firm’s documents say is worth nothing if the firm can pay to change it.