The Provider Index
The stack · About
About the desk

A small desk that reads registers for a living.

The Provider Index is a two person review desk covering business account providers in Europe. We are not a broker, not an affiliate and not a marketplace. Nothing on this site can be bought, and no provider sees a row before it is published.

01 · How we work

Three habits, and they are the whole product.

Habit 1

Entity before brand

We write down the legal person a contract is with. Brands merge, rebrand and split; entities are what the register knows.

Habit 2

Register before page

Marketing pages describe intent. Registers describe permission. When the two disagree, we publish the register and say where we looked.

Habit 3

Date before opinion

Every figure carries the day it was checked. A protection limit without a date is not a fact, it is a memory.

02 · What we sell

The index is free. The work behind it is not.

The public index, the method and the journal cost nothing and carry no commission. Two things are paid: a full data export of the index with the register fields and check dates, and a consultation where we run the three stage check on a shortlist you bring us.

We do not take payment from providers, we do not accept placement, and we do not run affiliate links. If that changes, it will be written here with a date.

What we are not

  • Not a broker or an introducer
  • Not a regulated adviser
  • Not a marketplace with paid rows
  • Not a rating agency: we publish fields, not scores

Choosing a provider is a decision to take with a qualified adviser who knows your situation.

03 · Coverage

What is in scope, and what is not yet.

In the index todayNot yet covered
Business accounts from banks, e-money institutions and payment institutions in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and LithuaniaMerchant acquiring and card processing, which is a different licence and a different failure mode
Licence status, protection scheme and the register field behind bothPricing and FX margins, which change faster than we can date them
Entity level splits inside one brandCredit products, lending decisions and overdraft terms

Start with the method, then read one profile end to end.

Read the method