Where our data comes from
Every fee, every reward rate, every eligibility cutoff on CardTrail is sourced from a primary, authoritative document — never from another comparison site. This page lists the sources we use, what we use them for, and how often we re-check them.
Why this page exists: credit card data on the internet is unreliable. Fees change, benefits get devalued, marketing copy contradicts MITC fine print. Every comparison site you find online has at least some stale or wrong data. We publish our sources in full so you can verify any claim on CardTrail against the same primary documents we use.
Regulatory sources
For rules that apply to all card issuers — credit card billing rules, RBI directives, GST rates, RuPay-on-UPI guidelines — we cite primary regulatory documents directly.
Reserve Bank of India — Master Directions and Circulars
rbi.org.in — official regulatory directives on credit card issuance, billing, recovery, and consumer protection. Used as the source for all "RBI rule changes" articles. Re-checked monthly.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
npci.org.in — RuPay-on-UPI rollout, BBPS rules, transaction routing. Used for articles on UPI-on-credit-card payments. Re-checked at NPCI's quarterly update cadence.
Finance Ministry / GST Council notifications
For GST rates applied on annual fees, finance charges, forex markups. Notifications are official PDFs from the Council's website. Re-checked when budget changes are announced.
Bank-issuer sources
For card-specific facts — fees, rewards, eligibility, lounge access, fine print — we use three primary sources per card, in this order of authority:
- The Most Important Terms and Conditions (MITC) document. Every Indian credit card has an MITC PDF that legally documents fees, finance charges, rewards-earn rules, and the bank's contractual position. This is the most authoritative source. When an MITC clause and a marketing page disagree, the MITC wins. We archive each MITC PDF on first read and re-pull it quarterly.
- The bank's official product page. The card's URL on the bank's own website (e.g., hdfcbank.com/personal/cards/credit-cards/...). Used for marketing-language descriptions, joining bonuses, current promotional offers. Re-checked monthly.
- The bank's mobile app and customer portal. Where benefits like quarterly milestone rewards or annual fee waivers are programmatically tied to spend, we cross-reference the app's reward statement with public MITC text. Used for verification, not as a primary source.
Banks whose MITC documents we currently maintain in our reference library: HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI Cards, American Express, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDFC First Bank, IndusInd Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, RBL Bank, Standard Chartered, Federal Bank, HSBC, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, DBS Bank India, and other major issuers.
Industry references (cross-check only)
We sometimes consult industry sources for context — but these are never used as the source of a claim. They serve as a sanity check.
RBI's monthly credit card statistics
For market-share, outstanding balance, and card-issuance trend articles. Aggregate-level data only.
Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, Diners network policy documents
For network-level rules — international acceptance, contactless caps, dynamic currency conversion behaviour.
DreamFolks, Priority Pass, LoungeKey lounge networks
For airport lounge eligibility and access rules. Network-level — bank-level lounge benefits are still verified via the bank's MITC.
What we explicitly do not use as a source
- ✗ Other comparison sites and aggregators. Their data is often stale or contradictory. If a competitor lists a different fee, we go to the bank's MITC, not split the difference.
- ✗ Bank press releases and marketing emails alone. A press release announcing "now with airport lounge access" is verified against the live MITC before we publish that the card has lounge access.
- ✗ Reddit, Twitter, finance forums. Useful for direction-of-travel signal — "users are reporting their reward rate dropped." We never cite a forum post as a fact. We follow up by reading the relevant MITC and confirming.
- ✗ AI-generated summaries of card benefits. Useful as a research starting point. Never the source of a published claim.
If you spot wrong data
Banks change fees and benefits with very little public notice. We re-check primary sources continuously, but you may know about a change before our refresh cycle catches it. If you see something on CardTrail that contradicts what your bank told you, your statement, or a current MITC document, write to us.
Contact the editor with the URL of the article and the source you're comparing it against. If we got it wrong, we will correct it under our retraction policy.