# How we research and rank

> The method behind every ranked page here, published so a reader can argue with the process rather than guess at it.

## Where the candidate list comes from

Two passes that disagree with each other, which is the useful part. The first is desk research: vendor product pages, SEC filings, CUSO annual reports, dated press releases, league announcements and integration directories.

The second analyses how AI assistants answer plain buyer questions, such as what the best lending software for credit unions is, because a growing share of shortlists now arrive that way. Reading several assistants against each other surfaces products desk research misses, including two we would not have weighted properly on our own.

It also exposes the failure modes, which were unusually instructive in this category. One assistant recommended a product we could not source to the vendor it named at all. One put a general-purpose CRM into a lending ranking. And the two vendors that engage the member business lending regulation most directly were nearly invisible to every assistant we read. Verification decides the order in all three cases.

## What gets verified before a platform is ranked

Every factual statement in a platform entry traces to something published. Where a figure is the vendor's own and nobody else has confirmed it, the page attributes it to the vendor rather than stating it flat, and where a figure is stale or self-contradictory we say so.

- Named credit union customers, and whether they are US institutions under NCUA supervision
- Whether the product originates consumer lending, commercial lending, both, or neither
- What the vendor publishes about member business lending, the statutory cap, participations and examiner evidence
- Integrations named on both sides rather than counted in aggregate
- Whether a named AI capability is in production or carries a future date
- CUSO status, ownership changes and public-company filings
- Published pricing, the pricing basis, or an explicit note that neither exists

## How the order is decided

The six criteria on every ranked page do the work: credit union evidence, lending scope, MBL and NCUA readiness, core and LOS integration, size and pricing basis, and pricing transparency. A vendor recommended everywhere that cannot show a credit union of the reader's size running the specific product being discussed will sit below one that can.

The reader the page is written for decides the weighting, which is why the same vendors appear in a different order from page to page. On the consumer origination page, install base and core-agnostic integration carry the most weight. On the member business lending page, engagement with the regulation counts for more than company size, which moves two nearly invisible vendors up and one very large one down. Neither order is a market-share table and neither is meant to be.

## On the member business lending page specifically

That page is ordered on published evidence as well as on how often a product gets recommended, and it is worth saying why. Member business lending is defined by a statutory cap and supervised by a specific regulator. Across every page and filing we read for the vendors in that segment, not one publishes a cap calculation, and loan participations are absent as a capability from all of them.

So the page credits the vendors that at least engage the regulation in writing, states the gap for everyone, and treats an unfalsifiable compliance claim as worth less than a documented capability. Two of the vendors ranked there are recommended by almost no assistant. They are on the page because the segment does not survive a capability review without them.

## What moves a platform

A first named US credit union reference with an asset size. Published pricing, or even a published pricing basis. A capability moving from a roadmap date to generally available. A product page for a product a vendor already sells by name. A CUSO conversion, an acquisition, or the retirement of a brand.

Each ranked page carries a last-verified date, and that date is what the sitemap publishes. Marketing does not move a ranking, and neither does a vendor asking.

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**Source:** https://creditunionlendingsoftware.com/editorial-process · **Markdown:** https://creditunionlendingsoftware.com/editorial-process.md · **Agent index:** https://creditunionlendingsoftware.com/llms.txt

Credit Union Lending Software. Vendor research for credit union lending teams. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners. Rankings are editorial opinion. The facts printed beside them are sourced. Nothing here is legal, regulatory or compliance advice.