Editorial Policy
This page explains how Invest Smartlys researches, writes, sources and corrects its content. We publish it so readers can judge our work against a stated standard rather than taking it on trust.
Our sourcing standard
Every factual claim in an article — a rate, a threshold, a legal requirement, a deadline — must be traceable to a source a reader can check.
Which source is right depends on who actually sets the rule. We work in this order of preference:
- Regulators and government bodies for law, tax and consumer rights. The IRS, HMRC and GOV.UK, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission, HUD, the FDIC, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, CIRO and their equivalents elsewhere.
- Central banks for rates and monetary policy. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank and Bank of Canada.
- Industry bodies and official statistics for market-level data. Bodies such as the Association of British Insurers, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Freddie Mac.
- First-party terms for anything product-specific. Card issuers, banks, insurers, airlines and loyalty programmes publish their own fees, eligibility criteria and expiry rules, and those documents are the correct source for that information — not a regulator, and not a third-party summary.
We say this plainly because it would be easy to claim everything comes from regulators, and it wouldn’t be true. An article about Avios expiry is sourced from British Airways. An article about mortgage insurance thresholds is sourced from HUD. Both are primary sources; they’re just different kinds.
What we avoid is citing aggregator sites, content farms and unattributed blog posts as sources of fact.
How we handle figures that change
Rates, allowances and contribution limits move. Where an article states one, we do three things: name the date or period it applies to, name the source, and tell readers to verify current figures before acting.
Articles built around figures that change frequently — mortgage rates, savings rates, tax thresholds, regulatory timelines, loyalty programme terms — are reviewed and updated when those figures move, not left to age quietly.
Where an article carries a visible “last updated” date, that date reflects a genuine review of the content, not a cosmetic edit.
Writing for multiple countries
Our readers are in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Europe. Financial rules differ substantially between them, and advice written for one market frequently misleads readers in another.
Where a topic works differently by country, we say so explicitly. That includes tax wrappers such as ISAs, TFSAs, 401(k)s and FHSAs; credit reporting and scoring systems; consumer protections such as Section 75 in the UK; and cover that is legally mandatory in some countries and optional in others.
Where a product or protection simply doesn’t exist in a reader’s market, we say that too rather than leaving them to discover it themselves.
Independence
We hold no affiliate relationships with the financial products, providers or platforms we write about. We are not paid commission when a reader opens an account, buys a policy or applies for a card.
This is why our articles routinely tell readers to verify terms directly with providers, and why we’re willing to write that a widely promoted product isn’t worth buying. We have no commercial interest in which option a reader chooses.
The site may display advertising. Advertising is separate from editorial: advertisers have no input into what we cover or what we conclude.
What we will not publish
Personalised financial advice. We publish general information. We don’t know your income, debts, tax position, dependants or goals, and anyone offering specific recommendations without that information isn’t advising you responsibly.
Guaranteed returns or outcomes. No investment guarantees a return, no side hustle guarantees an income, and no strategy guarantees a specific credit score by a specific date. Where we give timelines or figures, they’re framed as typical rather than promised.
Fabricated credentials. We don’t attach invented qualifications, biographies or review processes to our articles. We’d rather be judged on verifiable sourcing than on claimed expertise.
Promotional content disguised as editorial. If we ever publish sponsored material, it will be labelled as such.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes. When we do, we want to fix it properly.
If you spot a factual error, an outdated figure, a broken link or a claim that doesn’t match its source, please tell us through our contact page. Include the article and, if you can, the source that shows the correct position.
Substantive corrections are made promptly. We don’t delete articles to hide mistakes, and we don’t quietly rewrite around them.
Reader responsibility
Nothing on this site is a substitute for advice from a licensed professional who knows your circumstances. Before acting on anything you read here — buying a policy, taking a loan, moving investments, changing your tax position — check the current rules that apply where you live and, where the stakes justify it, take qualified advice.
Financial decisions carry risk. Investments can fall in value. Borrowing has consequences. We aim to help you understand those things clearly, not to tell you what to do.
This policy is reviewed periodically. For who we are and what we cover, see our About page. For our approach to data, see our Privacy Policy, and for the limits of our content, our Disclaimer.