About Financial Tools Review

Who Writes This

Financial Tools Review is written and maintained by one person, Ashok. There is no editorial team behind the word “we” on this site — it is a habit of writing rather than a claim about size, and it seemed more honest to say so than to leave you guessing.

I am not a financial adviser, I hold no financial qualification, and I am not authorised by any financial regulator. Nothing here is personalised advice, and if you want advice that takes account of your own circumstances you need someone authorised in your own country.

What I actually do is narrower, and I think more useful than it sounds: I read what providers and regulators publish — fee schedules, product terms, help centres, regulatory disclosures, deposit-protection rules — and write down what it means for someone deciding whether to use a product. That includes the parts that are easy to miss, such as which country can open an account, what the currency conversion actually costs, and whether a “savings” balance is a bank deposit or something else entirely. Where I have not been able to verify something, the page says so rather than filling the gap.

Every guide carries a byline with my name and the dates it was published and last revised, so you can see how old what you are reading is. You can reach me at ashokmarisel85@gmail.com or through the contact page. Corrections are the most useful thing you can send me.

Financial Tools Review is an independent financial education website: free calculators for loans, savings and investing, and plain-English guides that explain the maths behind them. We believe that everyone, regardless of their financial background or location, should be able to check the numbers behind a money decision for themselves.

Our Mission

Our aim is to publish free calculators that anyone can use, and clear guides that explain the financial concepts behind them. Our guides are based on desk research: we work from the information providers publish themselves — fee schedules, product pages, help centres and regulatory disclosures — alongside the rules published by the relevant regulators and deposit-protection schemes. We do not claim to personally open, fund or test every platform we write about. Where we describe a product, we explain what a feature or a fee actually means for you rather than simply listing it.

What We Do

We build calculators, and we write guides that explain the maths behind them:

• Financial calculators: Free tools for loans, interest, saving, investing and inflation that show their formulas and state their assumptions
• Investing costs and returns: How fees are structured, how returns compound, and what a fraction of a percent costs over decades
• Savings and interest: Effective annual rates, real returns after inflation, and what deposit protection covers
• Borrowing and budgeting: What a loan costs in total, and budgeting methods such as 50/30/20, zero-based budgeting and sinking funds
• Regional guides: How these calculations work in India and in Europe, with the local terms and rules that change them

Our Editorial and Review Process

Everything on this site is produced by desk research — structured reading and comparison of published information. It is not a personal audit of any provider, and it is not personalised financial advice.

What our research adds

Desk research is only useful if it does more than repeat what providers say about themselves. Where a page discusses products or providers, we:

• Read the pricing and fee schedules, not just the headline price, including spreads, currency conversion, account, withdrawal and inactivity charges.
• Compare account requirements: eligible countries, identification and minimums.
• Review the published product terms that change the real outcome, such as balance caps, paid tiers, lock-in periods and transfer-out rules.
• Check public regulatory information where relevant, such as regulator registers and the rules of deposit or investor-protection schemes, and explain what that protection does and does not cover.
• Standardise what we find into the same set of factors for every product, so pages can be read side by side.
• Work through the maths with examples that show what a fee or rate means in money at a realistic balance, backed by calculators you can rerun with your own numbers.
• Identify the differences that matter for the decision, and explain the terminology in plain language.
• Flag what we could not verify, so you know which details to confirm directly with the provider.

Where our information comes from

• The provider's own material: fee schedules, product and pricing pages, help centres, terms and conditions, and regulatory disclosures.
• Published rules from the relevant regulators and consumer-protection or deposit-guarantee schemes for the market in question.
• Publicly reported user experience, treated as indicative rather than as evidence.

What we compare

Where a page compares products, we look at the same set of factors for every one, so that pages are consistent with one another:

• Fees and costs: headline pricing plus the charges that are easy to miss — spreads, currency conversion, platform or account fees, withdrawal costs and inactivity charges.
• Features: what the product actually does, which assets or account types it supports, and any meaningful limits.
• Availability: which countries can open an account, and what identification or residency is required. This is often the deciding factor and is frequently glossed over elsewhere.
• Usability: how straightforward setup, funding and everyday use appear to be, based on the provider's own documentation and publicly reported experience.
• Regulation and consumer protection: who authorises the provider, and what compensation or deposit-guarantee scheme — if any — covers your money. Protection limits vary by country and do not apply to every product.

How we are funded, and how that is disclosed

The site is supported by advertising. It does not use affiliate or referral links, and no provider pays to be mentioned, to be described in a particular way, or to influence what we write. How advertising works on the site is set out in our disclosure and privacy policy.

The limits of desk research

Desk research has real limitations, and we would rather state them than imply a level of verification we do not have:

• We rely on what providers publish. If their own documentation is unclear, incomplete or out of date, our summary of it can inherit that problem.
• We have not necessarily opened, funded or operated an account with every provider covered, so we cannot speak to day-to-day experience from first hand.
• Fees, interest rates, product features, availability and regulatory status change often, and we may not reflect a change immediately.
• Anything specific — a fee, a rate, an availability claim — should be treated as a starting point to confirm directly with the provider, not as a guarantee.

Our Calculators

The calculators are the part of this site we have the most control over, because arithmetic does not go out of date the way a fee schedule does. There are eight: the EMI, car loan and simple interest calculators for borrowing; the compound interest, savings goal and inflation calculators for saving; and the SIP and investment return calculators for investing. All of them are built on three principles.

• Show the formula. Each calculator page writes out the equation it uses and works through an example by hand. If you cannot check our arithmetic, you have no reason to trust the output.
• State the assumptions. A projection is only as good as what it assumes. Our return-based calculators assume a single steady rate, which real investments do not deliver, and say so plainly. The loan calculators assume a fixed rate held for the full term. Every rate is one you enter: we do not pre-fill rates, returns or inflation figures from any provider or data source.
• Keep them free and private. They run entirely in your browser. The figures you type are never sent to our server, stored, or saved between visits, and there is no sign-up.

We add a calculator only when it answers a real question that the existing ones do not, and only once its formula and worked example have been checked.

Editorial Independence and Its Limits

We maintain editorial independence and never accept payment to write a positive assessment or to place a product higher in a comparison. Products with no commercial arrangement are covered alongside those that have one.

It is worth being straightforward about what independence does not mean here. It does not mean our coverage is comprehensive — we cover what we have researched, which is not every product in every market. It does not mean we are immune to the general bias of writing about the larger, better-documented providers, whose published material is easiest to work from. And it does not mean we are always right; desk research inherits any error or omission in the source material.

Corrections

Fees change, products are withdrawn and availability rules shift by country, so pages here go out of date. When we are told about an error, or find one, we correct the page rather than quietly leaving it. Each guide carries a “content last updated” date drawn from our own records, and we do not regenerate that date automatically — if a page has not been revised, its date does not move.

If you find something wrong, the fastest way to get it fixed is to tell us which page and which line, ideally with a link to the provider’s current terms. Our contact page explains what is most useful to include.

Global Focus

We recognize that financial tools and investment opportunities vary by country. That's why we specifically note which platforms are available in which countries, which payment methods are accepted, and any regional restrictions or requirements. Whether you're in the United States, United Kingdom, India, or any other country, we aim to provide information relevant to your location.

Our Commitment to You

We are committed to:

• Describing our sources and method openly, including their limits
• Being transparent about how the site is funded
• Correcting pages when we are told, or discover, that a detail has changed
• Responding to reader questions and feedback
• Keeping explanations consistent, and not letting any commercial interest decide what we include

Contact Us

Have a question, suggestion, or found an error? We'd love to hear from you. Please visit our Contact page to get in touch.