Regulation Check
Gracker reads every claim in your content that says a rule requires something, and puts it through three checks against the regulation that governs it. Claims that pass get cited inline to the rule's own text. Claims that fail get named, with the specific failure.
The problem is not made-up facts
Regulatory content written by people who know the subject is mostly correct. That is what makes it hard to review, and it is why "is this accurate?" is the wrong question to automate.
What actually goes wrong is narrower and far more common:
A deadline that is right, with nothing behind it. A cap quoted correctly with one component missing. A rule attributed to the agency that did not write it. A proposal described as though it already binds. A page of agency guidance cited as law, carrying a .gov link that makes it look settled.
None of these read as errors. Every one survives a careful proofread. All of them are mechanically detectable.
The three checks
Every regulatory claim goes through these in order. A claim has to pass all three.
1. Does the rule text say it?
The section is fetched and the claimed deadline, threshold or obligation is matched against the words in it. Resolving the citation is not the check - a link that returns a page proves nothing about the number in the sentence next to it.
This is where most claim-checking stops, and stopping here is worse than not checking, because a citation that resolves is what makes a wrong number look reviewed.
The commentary is read alongside the section. The Official Interpretations published with each regulation are where the answers usually are. The commentary published with Regulation Z opens by stating that good faith compliance with it "affords protection from liability under section 130(f) of the Truth in Lending Act." Following it is a legal defence. Regulation E's commentary alone runs to roughly 560,000 characters, and the numbered sections on their own do not answer most of what people search for.
2. Is the rule in force?
Four states, and content collapses them constantly:
| State | What your copy may say |
|---|---|
| Proposed | "has proposed" - never "requires" |
| Final, not yet effective | "takes effect on" that date |
| Effective, staged compliance | the tier and its date, named |
| Vacated or stayed | not cited as current law at all |
Presence in the CFR decides whether something is law. The Federal Register document decides when it starts and what kind of document it is. Both get checked, because a rule can be final in the Federal Register and not yet appear in the CFR.
3. Is it the right regulator?
Consumer disputes, credit disclosure and debt collection are CFPB. Funds availability and debit interchange are the Federal Reserve. Deposit insurance is FDIC. AML is FinCEN. Sanctions are OFAC. Data security for non-bank firms is FTC. Securities are SEC.
Attribution errors are invisible: a deadline quoted correctly but credited to the wrong regulation reads exactly like a correct citation, and the wrong citation still resolves.
What a finding looks like
Not a score. A list of sentences, what the rule actually says, and the edit.
Findings from a page about disputed card transactions:
| The sentence | What the source says | Edit |
|---|---|---|
| "Banks must resolve disputes within 10 business days." | 12 CFR 1005.11 says exactly that | correct - add the citation |
| "Debit interchange is capped at 21 cents plus 5 basis points." | 12 CFR 235.3 says that, and 235.4 adds a 1 cent fraud-prevention adjustment | incomplete - add the adjustment |
| "...under Dodd-Frank" linked to cftc.gov | 12 CFR 235.1 names the Federal Reserve Board | wrong regulator - cite Regulation II |
| "Small business lending data is collected under 12 CFR 1071." | that rule is 12 CFR 1002, subpart B; part 1071 is a different rule that exists | wrong part - recite |
| "The new rule lowers the interchange cap." | the Federal Reserve's proposal was published in 2023 and never finalised | not law - say "has proposed" |
| "The CFPB requires this, per its compliance guide." | the guide creates no obligation; the rule does | cite the section, or soften to "has said" |
Six findings, and not one of them is an invented fact. Every sentence in that left column is something a knowledgeable writer would produce, and every one survives a careful proofread.
The pattern is worth naming: the most common finding by a long way is a correct fact with nothing pointing at the rule. It is also the cheapest to fix, and the fix is the one that most improves the page - an uncited claim asks to be trusted, a cited one can be checked.
One claim, all three checks
A page answering "How long does a bank have to resolve a disputed transaction?"
The draft says: banks have to investigate disputes quickly.
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Says it? | 12 CFR 1005.11 read from the current eCFR edition, plus Supplement I |
| In force? | in the CFR, effective, no pending amendment |
| Right regulator? | CFPB owns Regulation E |
What ships:
Under Regulation E (12 CFR 1005.11 (opens in a new tab)), an institution that requires written confirmation of an oral error notice must give the consumer 10 business days to provide it.
The deadline was not recalled. It was read out of the rule on the day the page was written.
What Gracker holds
US federal financial regulation is not one rulebook. It is six agencies across four CFR titles, and knowing which one owns a subject is most of check 3.
| Agency | Where | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| CFPB | 12 CFR chapter X | consumer credit, deposits, transfers, collection, credit reporting, mortgages, open banking |
| Federal Reserve | 12 CFR 204, 210, 229, 235 | reserve requirements, Fedwire and FedNow, funds availability, debit interchange |
| FDIC | 12 CFR 328, 330 | official signs and insured-status representations, deposit insurance coverage |
| FinCEN | 31 CFR chapter X | BSA and AML, organised by entity type rather than by subject |
| OFAC | 31 CFR chapter V | roughly forty sanctions programs, each its own part |
| FTC | 16 CFR 313, 314, 433, 435 | privacy and the Safeguards Rule, reaching non-bank fintechs |
| SEC | 17 CFR 240, 275 | Regulation Best Interest, investment advisers |
The CFPB rulebook is held in full and refreshed on each new eCFR issue: 37 parts, 656 sections, and the Official Interpretations that go with them. The rest resolve per claim.
New York is treated as a national floor, since firms comply with 23 NYCRR 500 and the BitLicense everywhere. Fifty-state surveys are not attempted.
What this does not check
- Anything that is not rule text. Entity status and licence lookups, enforcement actions, and third-party attestations such as SOC 2 or PCI are separate problems with separate sources, and they are out of scope here.
- Statistics and market data. Fraud losses, transaction volumes, interest rates, adoption surveys, company financials.
- Non-US rules. PSD2, the FCA, the RBI. Left alone rather than answered with an American rule.
- Whether the rule applies to you. That is a legal question. This checks what a rule says, not what you should do about it, and it is not legal advice.
- Non-fintech brands, and non-articles. Nothing runs.
In the product
Page Audit grades every regulatory claim on the page, shows what the rule actually says, and gives the edit.
Visibility Diagnosis names the regulations a competitor cites on a topic where they outrank you, and the rules that belong on the page you have not written yet.
Content Generation puts citations in as the draft is written. No deadline, threshold or obligation is written from memory, and obligation language carries a rule citation or the obligation is softened out of the sentence.
FAQ
How do I turn this on?
You don't. Gracker classifies each brand as fintech or not when you add it. If the verdict is yes, Page Audit, Visibility Diagnosis and Articles all start applying the three checks to that brand's regulatory content.
What decides that my brand counts as fintech?
Whether financial services are the core business, not whether money gets mentioned. Payments, banking-as-a-service, neobanks, lending, credit and BNPL, wealth and brokerage, insurtech, RegTech, AML and KYC, crypto and digital assets, treasury and B2B payments all count. If taking payments is a feature of what you sell rather than the thing you sell, the answer is no.
Can I publish these citations without checking them?
For the citation, the text and the link, yes: the rule was read on the day it was used, and the claim was matched against the words in it. Two things stay yours. Whether the rule applies to your situation is a legal question. And relevance is a strong match rather than a guarantee.
Why did it change a deadline I know is right?
Because the rule says something else today, or because the number lives in the commentary rather than the section you were reading. The citation shows which edition it came from.
Why did it cite the regulation instead of the agency's own explainer?
The explainer is a summary. When the rule text exists, that is what gets cited, and the explainer can follow it. By the CFPB's own published policy, compliance aids do not have the force of law.
It flagged a sentence that has a government link on it.
Agencies publish the rule, and they publish writing about the rule, on the same domain and in the same house style. Only the rule requires anything. If your citation is a document title rather than a section number, that is what got flagged.
Does it check whether we are actually licensed or insured?
No. That is an entity lookup, not a rule question, and it is out of scope for now.