Advertising and affiliate disclosure

How this site could make money

Some links to a bank, card issuer, broker, insurer or other provider may earn us a commission if you open an account or apply. That is the intended way this project pays for research, translation, verification and hosting. Where a link works that way, we label it as a commercial link near the link itself, in addition to this page.

You never pay more because you arrived through us, and we are paid the same whichever of the labelled options you choose, where we are paid at all — so there is no incentive to steer you to one over another.

What compensation never buys

• A ranking, a position in a table, or a place in a “best for” list.
• A fact. Every figure is checked against a primary source and carries a verification date, whatever the commercial relationship.
• The removal of a drawback, a fee, a cap, an exclusion or a risk we would otherwise publish.
• Inclusion in, or exclusion from, our research coverage.
• A review written by the provider, or approved by it before publication. We do not publish sponsored articles or paid reviews.

The editorial method that keeps this true — source-first fields, transparent evaluation, and separation of commercial from editorial — is described in our methodology, and the same rules bind the comparison tables and the finders.

How to tell what you are clicking

• A commercial link is labelled as one where it appears, and an application or sign-up link is identified as an application link.
• An official-source link — a regulator, a ministry, or a provider’s own documentation — earns us nothing and is there so you can verify what we wrote.
• Product logos and card images identify the product under discussion. They are not advertisements and imply no relationship.
• No banner advertising, interstitial or paid placement appears anywhere on the site.

Japan’s rules against misleading representations require advertising to be identifiable as advertising, and require claims about a product’s quality or terms to be substantiated. Both are also simply how a reference site stays worth reading. If you find a commercial link that is not labelled, or a claim you think is overstated, report it through the corrections form or the general contact — we treat that as a defect, not feedback.

Other relationships we would disclose

If any of the following ever applies, it will be stated on the page it affects and added here before publication: payment for a specific piece of content, a free or discounted product provided for review, an equity or employment interest in a provider we cover, a data or licensing arrangement with a provider, or an editorial partnership. None of these currently exists.