Change log
Every change to the Trust Score methodology is recorded here with a date, version, and description of what changed and why.
- No version change: the court sub-score names only the registers it reads2026-09-05
No score changes. The documented source list for the court and insolvency sub-score named AFSA, the personal bankruptcy index, which a check does not read. It never has: that index is a paid, name-by-name search with no bulk feed, and the bankruptcy input to this sub-score has always been set to nothing found. The methodology now lists the two sources the sub-score actually reads, the ASIC insolvency register and the Federal Court, and the API names the bankruptcy index among the sources it did not read on every response, so a caller can see the input was defaulted rather than checked. Weights, bands and every other input are unchanged. The same correction was made to every page that counted the registers.
- v1.3: an open AUSTRAC enforcement matter now counts as open2026-09-01
Some scores go down under this version. One change, in one direction, affecting only businesses with an enforcement matter AUSTRAC has not closed. We say so plainly for the same reason we said the opposite about v1.2 on the same day.
What changed at the source. AUSTRAC moved its enforcement register, and the replacement page publishes something the old one did not: whether a matter is ongoing or concluded. Until now every entry was read as a past action, because the page we were reading recorded actions taken and gave us no way to tell a live matter from a closed one. We do not assert what a source cannot show, so the input for a current listing sat switched off. It can now be evidenced, so it is on.
What it does to a score. A business named in an ongoing AUSTRAC enforcement matter scores zero on the AUSTRAC sub-score, which carries a weight of 20. A concluded matter is unchanged: it deducts, and it does not zero. One matter is now counted once, so an open matter is no longer also reported as a historical action against the same business.
It is a name match, and it says so. AUSTRAC publish the organisation name and no company number, so this finding is joined on a name. Under the evidence tiers introduced in v1.2 that makes it a tier B finding: it is published, it zeroes the sub-score, and on its own it does not cap the band. A second independent register has to agree first.
- v1.2: evidence tiers, and four corrections that raise scores2026-09-01
Some scores go up under this version. Four of the five changes below correct places where a business was penalised for something that was never about that business. We would rather say so here than have you notice a number move and wonder why.
Evidence tiers. A band cap now depends on how a finding was joined to the business. A match on a registered identifier, an ABN or an ACN, caps the band on its own. A match on a name does not, unless a second independent register agrees, because a name match cannot tell two similarly named businesses apart. Before this version the fuzziest match in the system could cap a band while the most precise one carried no weight at all. Every report now names the tier behind each severe finding.
Freshness is about our data, not about you. The freshness sub-score read its timestamps from the records that matched your name, so a business on no register at all had no timestamps and was charged the full penalty for every source. A clean business was penalised precisely because nothing was recorded against it. Freshness now comes from when each register was last refreshed, which is the same figure published on our coverage page.
Expired bans are shown, not scored. Of the 7,213 entries on the ASIC banned and disqualified persons register, 5,974 have expired, some in the 1990s. A lapsed banning was being treated as a current one. It is now published as a flag with the date it ended, and it does not move the score.
Freshness deadlines now match what the publishers actually do. Several sources were marked stale sooner than their publisher republishes them, so a source behaving exactly as intended was reported as out of date and the penalty charged against every report. ASIC publish their registers weekly, on Tuesdays, and our deadlines now say so.
External administration is matched on the company number. It was matched on the company name, which for the strongest penalty in the score was the wrong join. It is now matched on the ACN.
- No version change: website-to-entity check added beside the score2026-08-31
A report can now include a check of the website you were given against the .au registry, which publishes the ABN a com.au or net.au licence is held under. The methodology version is unchanged at v1.1 because this changes no score: the finding is published as its own block, with the registrant and the registry’s own last-modified date, and it moves no sub-score and no band. We have not measured how often legitimate Australian businesses hold a domain under a different ABN, so scoring it would be a number placed on a guess. Rationale in the methodology, under “Published beside the score”.
- v1.1: band-cap rule2026-04-20
Any sub-score terminating at 0 (e.g. ABR cancelled, disqualified director, active sanctions listing, AUSTRAC enforcement, current external administration) now caps the band at AMBER regardless of composite score. Composite math is unchanged; only the visual band classification is affected. Freshness terminal-zeros do not trigger the cap (staleness is not a risk-severity signal). Full rule in
docs/decisions/ADR-001-trust-score.md. - v1.0: initial publication2026-04-20
First public methodology release. Six sub-scores defined: registration validity, directorship, AUSTRAC flags, sanctions / PEP, court & insolvency, freshness.