Editorial policy

Our promise

Tide Referral Guide earns money from referrals, which means every recommendation has an obvious financial incentive behind it. This policy describes the controls we use to keep that incentive from corrupting the advice.

Source hierarchy

When facts conflict, we trust higher sources over lower ones. We cite a source on every claim that affects a financial decision.

1. Primary regulatory sources — FCA register, FSCS scheme rules, HMRC guidance, ICO guidance.
2. Official Tide and ClearBank documentation — terms of service, fee schedules, in-app disclosures and press releases on tide.co and clear.bank.
3. First-hand testing — the application flow, in-app behaviour, support response times and offer mechanics, captured from real Tide accounts we hold.
4. Reputable financial press — Which?, MoneySavingExpert, FT, Sifted, Finextra. Used for context, never as the only source for a numeric fact.
5. User reports — emails, Trustpilot, App Store, Reddit. Used to identify themes (e.g. recurring complaints about closures) but never quoted as fact without corroboration.

Update frequency

• Offer pages (REFER200, cashback amounts, eligibility) — reviewed weekly and immediately when we are notified of a change.
• Fee and plan pages — reviewed monthly against Tide's published price list.
• Comparison pages — reviewed quarterly, or sooner when a competitor changes its pricing.
• Regulatory pages (FSCS, ClearBank, "Is Tide a bank?") — reviewed every six months and after any FCA announcement that affects e-money firms.

Every commercial page shows a Last checked date. If that date is older than the cycle above, treat the content as stale and email us.

Corrections policy

If you spot an outdated detail, broken link, or a claim you can't verify against a primary source, tell us via the contact page. We commit to:

• Acknowledging your message within 2 working days.
• Actioning verified corrections within 5 working days.
• Adding a visible correction note to the page when a previously published number was wrong (we don't silently edit).

Independence and conflicts of interest

We earn a referral reward when readers open a Tide account via our link. We disclose this on every commercial page and in the footer.

We do not:

• Accept direct payment, gifts or hospitality from Tide, ClearBank or any competitor.
• Publish sponsored posts, paid reviews or "advertorial" disguised as editorial.
• Allow Tide (or anyone else) to approve, review or edit our content before publication.
• Boost Tide's rating, hide negative facts, or remove competitor comparisons because a referral programme asks us to.

AI and content authenticity

We use AI tools (including large language models) to draft outlines, suggest phrasing and check spelling. Every published page is reviewed and fact-checked by a human editor against the source hierarchy above. We do not publish AI-generated reviews or fabricated user quotes.

Reader feedback

We read every email. If a reader's experience contradicts something we've written — for example, a REFER200 application that didn't pay out — we investigate, contact Tide if needed, and update the page if the issue is reproducible.