58 on the roster · 25 graded · target 100 · Methodology v2026.08

Lender grades: the criteria, published first

Evaluate a US lender by checking four public facts: whether its full APR range and fees are published before you apply; how its highest rate compares to the 36% Military Lending Act benchmark; whether it is NMLS-registered or federally chartered; and whether the CFPB or a state Attorney General has a public enforcement action against it.

This page runs those checks for you, shows the exact numbers and sources behind every grade, and publishes the full rubric below — before a single grade — so anyone can reproduce it. Being on the roster and being graded are different, always separately shown claims — see “Roster coverage” below.

58 lenders on the roster25 graded7 published dimensions12 grades cappedZero affiliate links on this page

Coverage, honestly

58 real, sourced lenders are on the roster today; 25 of those are actually graded — toward a published target of the top 100 US consumer and business lenders. Those are three different numbers on purpose. Being on the roster means we independently confirmed the institution is real (see “Roster coverage” below) — it is not a grade, and it is never an accusation. Every grade on this page is a first pass, built only from data this site has already independently verified, and stays provisional until it goes through independent review. We are not claiming 100 lenders are graded, or that 100 are even on the roster yet — this is the system we will use to get there, seeded honestly with what we could back with real evidence today.

Growing this page means adding more lenders to the roster and to the same grading rubric, not changing either to fit a headline number. See the roadmap in our LENDER_GRADING_METHODOLOGY.md for exactly what it takes to add the next batch, and see “Full lender roster” below for every institution we could independently confirm exists.

Roster coverage

On the roster (real, sourced, independently confirmed to exist)

Actually graded (ran through the full seven-dimension rubric)

100

Published target — the top US consumer and business lenders

Validation tiers

Every roster entry is tagged with how confirmable the roster fact itself is — never a judgment about the lender. Compiled 2026-08-25.

Identifier verified

A real registry identifier — an FDIC certificate, an NCUA charter number, a GLEIF-verified LEI, or a lender-disclosed NMLS number — is attached, with its own source and retrieval date.

Dataset sourced

Drawn from one of this site’s own dated, previously-verified research datasets, without an independent registry hit captured in this pass.

Listed, unverified

A real, well-known institution named to keep a known coverage gap visible. No registry identifier and no in-repo dataset behind it yet — always shown separately from the two tiers above.

Segment coverage — including the gaps

Business financing is where predatory conduct concentrates most, and where this roster has the least today. The zeros below are shown deliberately, not hidden.

Credit cards	24
Personal loans	14
Auto loans	23
Mortgage	22
Business — SBA lending	5
Business — lines of credit	3
Business — equipment finance	0
Business — merchant cash advance	0

Merchant-cash-advance and equipment-finance sit at zero: neither the FDIC nor the NCUA cover non-bank commercial finance companies, and the state and NMLS registries that would confirm them render JavaScript-only pages that could not be queried as structured data in this research pass. SBA lending is represented only by FDIC-insured bank lenders — no independent, non-bank SBA lender is on this roster yet. See docs/LENDER_GRADING_METHODOLOGY.md for the full source hierarchy and the path to closing this gap.

Facts, not opinions

Every negative-leaning input is the lender’s own disclosed number or a docketed public enforcement action — never an adjective.

Thresholds set first

Every band and weight below was fixed before we scored a single lender, and stays fixed across the whole corpus.

Confidence shown, always

A grade built on partial evidence is labeled provisional or preliminary right next to the letter — never a bare grade.

How every grade is computed

Seven dimensions, weighted to sum to 100%. A dimension with no sourced evidence for a given lender is left out of that lender’s average entirely — it is never assumed clean, average, or worst-case. The percentage of the rubric actually backed by evidence becomes that lender’s published data completeness.

Cost transparency

20% weight

Is the lender's full APR range published on its own site, without requiring an application? Scored on whether a minimum AND a maximum are both published, and whether that came from the lender's own official page or only a secondary source.

Scored today for 25 of 25 graded lenders.

Cost level vs. MLA benchmark

20% weight

How does the lender's own published maximum APR compare to the 36% Military Lending Act benchmark (10 U.S.C. § 987; 32 CFR Part 232)? Only scored when a real ceiling is published — a "starting at" rate alone is not a ceiling.

Scored today for 14 of 25 graded lenders.

18% or less (half the 36% benchmark or better)	100/100
18.01%–25%	80/100
25.01%–30%	60/100
30.01%–36% (at or under the benchmark)	35/100
Over 36% (exceeds the benchmark)	0/100

Fee burden

15% weight

How large is the maximum origination or administrative fee, as a percent of the loan amount, against the 0%–8% range this methodology treats as typical for this loan category?

Scored today for 12 of 25 graded lenders.

0% (no origination/administrative fee)	100/100
0.01%–3%	85/100
3.01%–8% (the published "typical" ceiling)	65/100
8.01%–12%	35/100
Over 12%	10/100

Regulatory record

20% weight

Is there a public, docketed CFPB or state Attorney General enforcement action against this entity? Counted and weighted by how recently each action concluded — never an allegation we could not verify against the regulator's own record.

Scored today for 3 of 25 graded lenders.

Complaint density

10% weight

How many CFPB complaints does this lender have in the relevant product category, over the published 12-month window? A raw count only — not adjusted for the lender’s size or customer count.

Scored today for 5 of 25 graded lenders.

50 or fewer complaints	100/100
51–150 complaints	75/100
151–400 complaints	50/100
401–800 complaints	25/100
Over 800 complaints	0/100

Licensing verifiability

5% weight

Can this lender's license be independently confirmed — an NMLS registration number, or a federal bank/credit-union charter checkable via FDIC BankFind or NCUA's Research a Credit Union?

Scored today for 20 of 25 graded lenders.

Terms clarity

10% weight

How many of a loan's core structural terms (prepayment penalty policy, late fee policy, loan amount range, loan term range) does the lender clearly disclose on its own materials?

Scored today for 25 of 25 graded lenders.

Letter grade bands

A	85–100 weighted score
B	70+ weighted score
C	50+ weighted score
D	30+ weighted score
F	0+ weighted score

Confidence bands

High confidence	≥75%
Provisional	≥45%
Preliminary	≥25%
Not yet gradable	<25%

Share of the published rubric backed by real evidence.

The grade cap

A lender whose own published terms already cross a threshold fixed in advance, or that carries a public, docketed enforcement action, cannot be graded higher than C — no matter how strong its other measured dimensions are. This is a fixed rule, not a per-lender judgment call.

Conflict of interest

This page carries no affiliate links, no partner CTAs, and no sponsored placement. No lender graded here receives — or can receive — a promotional slot on the strength of its grade; that logic simply does not exist in the code that renders this page. See advertiser disclosure for how monetization works on the rest of this site.

Personal loan grades

13 personal-loan lenders, best to worst by computed grade. Every sub-score and source is inside each card.

Auto loan grades

12 auto lenders, best to worst by computed grade. Several score lower here than a reader might expect for a well-known bank — that is usually a data-completeness gap (the auto-loan dataset does not yet collect fee or full enforcement-record data for every lender), not a finding against the lender. Read the sub-scores, not just the letter.

Full lender roster

Every institution we could independently confirm belongs on this list — 58 in total, grouped by validation tier, then alphabetical. Being on the roster is a fact-of-existence claim, never a grade: entries are never ordered by grade or score, because most of them do not have one yet, and any grade-based ordering would make an ungraded institution look ranked against a graded one.

See the full roster, with every identifier and source →

Frequently asked questions

How do you grade a lender?

Every lender is scored on up to seven weighted dimensions — cost transparency, cost level against the 36% Military Lending Act benchmark, fee burden, regulatory record, complaint density, licensing verifiability, and terms clarity — each backed by a published number, a source URL, and a retrieval date. The weights and thresholds are published below, before a single grade, and nothing here scores an opinion.

How many lenders are graded, how many are on the roster, and how is that different from the top-100 target?

Three different numbers, on purpose: 58 real, sourced lenders are on the roster today; 25 of those have actually been run through the seven-dimension rubric and carry a grade; the published target is the top 100 US consumer and business lenders. Being on the roster means we independently confirmed the institution is real (see "Roster coverage" below) — it is not a grade, a ranking, or an assessment of any kind. We add lenders to the roster, and separately to the graded set, only once we can back the claim with a real, dated source — never on a deadline, and never by padding either number.

What do “provisional” and “preliminary” mean next to a grade?

They describe how much of the published rubric a grade actually rests on, not how good or bad the lender is. "High confidence" means at least 75% of the rubric's weight is backed by real evidence; "provisional" means at least 45%; "preliminary" means at least 25%. Below that floor, we show whatever evidence we do have but do not print a letter at all.

Does being on the lender roster mean anything about a lender?

No, and this is a deliberate distinction. The roster is a fact-of-existence list — we independently confirmed the institution is real, and we tag it with a "validation level" (identifier verified, dataset sourced, or listed and not yet verified) describing how confirmable THAT FACT is. It is never an accusation, a warning, an endorsement, or an assessment of quality, safety, or trustworthiness. Only a published grade — with its full seven-dimension breakdown — is an assessment, and most roster entries do not have one yet. A roster entry with no grade is shown as "not yet graded," never as a blank or an implied low score.

Can a lender's grade improve by advertising with you?

No. The rubric and its weights are published and dated independently of any partnership, the scoring code has no field for "is this lender a partner," and no graded lender receives a promotional placement on the strength of its grade. See the conflict-of-interest section below.

Why do some lenders show more sub-scores than others?

A dimension only scores when we have a real, sourced number behind it. When one is missing, we say so directly — "not yet researched" — instead of guessing or averaging it away. That is also why a "% of rubric scored" figure sits next to every grade: it is the exact fraction of the published weight that grade rests on.

What does it mean when a grade is "capped"?

12 of the 25 lenders graded so far carry a grade cap: their own published terms already cross a threshold we fixed in advance, or a public regulator has a docketed enforcement action on file against them. A capped lender cannot be graded any higher than a C, regardless of how it scores on the other dimensions — see the evidence on that lender's own card for the exact number or docket.

Is this legal or financial advice?

No. This page is educational information about how to evaluate a lender using public facts. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or a personal recommendation, reading it does not create any professional relationship, and it is not a substitute for your own research or a licensed professional’s advice about your specific situation.

How is this different from a "best lenders" list?

A typical "best lenders" list publishes picks without publishing the criteria behind them. Here, the full rubric — every dimension, weight, and numeric threshold — is published below, before a single grade, using numbers fixed in advance. A stranger can take the same public facts we cite and reproduce every grade on this page by hand.

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Educational information — not advice

This page provides general educational information about credit, debt, and consumer protections. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or credit repair services, and reading it does not create any professional relationship. Laws, procedures, deadlines, and dollar amounts vary by state and change over time.

For advice about your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney or qualified financial professional. See our full disclaimer.