Data methodology

What this site is

paytools.dev is an independent directory and set of tools: it compiles payment institutions and licensed entities from public regulatory lists, and offers crypto card comparison, SWIFT / IBAN lookup, and a browser-visible payment self-check.

It is not a regulator, a bank, or an official OpenAI, Anthropic, or Stripe console.

License records

License fields are compiled from public registries: PBOC, US state money transmitter lists, FINTRAC, EBA PSD2, FCA subsets, MAS, HKMA, ASIC/AUSTRAC, JFSA, and BNM.

A license number appears only if it was on a public list. A missing field means it was not published — not that this site invented and then omitted it. For a final check, cite the original regulator publication, not only this site.

Capability tags

The directory uses five capability tags: crypto-friendly, bank API / BaaS, card issuing API, acquiring API, and payout API.

• Yes or no only when a citable public product page or developer document supports the claim.
• Unknown means no public assertion was found; it does not mean the capability is unsupported.
• Long-tail institutions are usually unknown on all five tags. That coverage gap is not a market survey.

Market cap and funding

Only group-level figures with a public source are stored. No estimates, no interpolation, and no peer figures copied onto an unverified entity.

Unverified fields stay empty. Several legal entities under one brand may share a group-level figure, labeled as such.

Payment institutions vs legal entities

The payment institution entry is not always a single licensed entity. Follow its linked entity records, then verify against the regulator source listed there.

AI payment check boundaries

The checker ranks likely causes from browser-visible network signals plus the error or card type you enter. It cannot see issuer authorization, 3DS, account history, or platform risk scores, so it is not a payment-success prediction.

No PAN or CVV is collected or stored. Network lookups may contact third-party IP/STUN providers that can see the public IP.

Clearing cookies, switching browsers, or reinstalling an app does not clear an issuer decline. Those steps only address client or session issues, and are not an official decision.

SWIFT routing records

SWIFT detail pages are sourced routing/corridor records plus an ISO 9362 decode. They are not a complete SWIFTRef / BIC directory, and they do not send money.

Country-level rails are marked yes/no only when we can cite the ISO 13616 / SWIFT IBAN Registry extract or a named official page. Unknown stays unknown. We do not invent IBANs, CNAPS numbers, correspondent banks, or license numbers. Decoder-only pages are not indexed.

How to cite

Prefer this page, the source links on an institution detail record, and /faq. For licenses, cite the original regulator, not only this site.