Intelligence Research Methodology Framework

Version 1.0 – Published June 2026

This document governs the collection, analysis, scoring, and publication of all research produced under the Brands.Ng Intelligence label. It is published in full and without redaction because the credibility of every Brands.Ng Intelligence report depends on the transparency of the process that produced it. Readers, journalists, regulators, and entities being evaluated are invited to scrutinise this methodology and to contact Brands.Ng at [editorial@brands.ng] with any questions about its application in a specific report.

Part One: Who We Are and Why This Methodology Exists

Brands.Ng is Nigeria’s foremost independent business intelligence platform, covering the brands, companies, and commercial institutions that shape the Nigerian economy and the daily financial decisions of Nigerian consumers. The Brands.Ng Intelligence report series was created to fill a specific and documented gap in Nigeria’s business information landscape: the absence of independent, methodology-driven, publicly verifiable research on the performance, trustworthiness, and regulatory standing of Nigerian commercial entities.

Most analysis of Nigerian businesses currently available to journalists, regulators, investors, and consumers takes one of three forms: company self-reporting (which is inherently partial), journalism that is accurate but not systematic (which cannot produce comparable scores across entities), or international research firm reports that cover Nigeria as a line item in an Africa-wide dataset (which lacks the granularity and local context that Nigerian decision-makers need). Brands.ng Intelligence is designed to be none of those things. It is independent, systematic, locally grounded, fully transparent about its methodology, and built to a standard of rigour that allows its findings to be cited as primary sources.

This methodology document exists because a ranking without a documented methodology is an opinion. An opinion, however informed, cannot be independently verified, cannot be meaningfully challenged, and should not be cited as a primary source. Brands.Ng Intelligence reports are designed to be cited as primary sources. That ambition requires this document.

Part Two: Independence and Conflict of Interest Policy

The credibility of every Brands.Ng Intelligence report rests on the independence of the research process. The following policies govern that independence and are permanent commitments that apply to every report published under the Brands.Ng Intelligence label.

2.1 Non-influence policy Brands.Ng does not accept payment, advertising revenue, gifts, sponsored access, or any other form of compensation from any entity in exchange for influencing that entity’s position in a Brands.Ng Intelligence index. An entity being evaluated in a Brands.Ng Intelligence report has no mechanism to improve its score other than improving its actual performance on the dimensions the index measures.

2.2 Advance access policy Entities being evaluated in a Brands.Ng Intelligence report do not receive advance access to their scores or to the report’s findings before publication. Brands.Ng may contact an entity to verify a specific factual claim or to offer the entity an opportunity to correct a factual error before publication, but this contact does not extend to sharing composite scores, rankings, or editorial conclusions.

2.3 Commercial relationship disclosure If Brands.Ng has any commercial relationship with an entity being evaluated in a report — including advertising relationships, sponsored content arrangements, or affiliate partnerships – that relationship is disclosed in the report’s methodology section. The existence of a commercial relationship does not automatically exclude an entity from evaluation, but it is disclosed so that readers can apply their own judgement.

2.4 Editorial separation The Brands.Ng Intelligence research process is editorially separate from Brands.Ng’s commercial operations. Advertising sales, sponsored content, and commercial partnerships do not influence the research agenda, the entity selection for any index, or the scoring process.

2.5 Ownership transparency Brands.Ng is an independently owned Nigerian publication. Its ownership structure does not include equity positions in any entity evaluated in Brands.Ng Intelligence reports.

Part Three: Data Source Hierarchy

Not all data sources carry equal weight or equal reliability. Brands.Ng Intelligence operates a three-tier source hierarchy that governs how data from different source types is used, labelled, and weighted in every report.

Tier 1 – Primary Sources Primary sources are official, institutional, and independently verifiable. They are used wherever available and their findings are presented as verified facts rather than reported claims. Primary sources include:

• Official publications, circulars, and press releases from the Central Bank of Nigeria (cbn.gov.ng)
• Official publications from the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (fccpc.gov.ng)
• Official publications from the Securities and Exchange Commission Nigeria (sec.gov.ng)
• Official publications from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (ndic.gov.ng)
• Official publications from the National Universities Commission, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, Nigerian Communications Commission, and any other relevant sector regulator
• Audited financial statements filed with the Nigerian Exchange Group or published by the entity
• Official company pricing pages, terms and conditions, and product disclosures published on the entity’s own website
• Peer-reviewed academic research published in named journals with documented methodology

Tier 2 – Secondary Sources Secondary sources are credible named publications that apply their own editorial standards to the information they report. Findings from secondary sources are presented as reported claims attributed to the named publication rather than as independently verified facts, unless the claim has been corroborated by a Tier 1 source. Secondary sources include:

• BusinessDay Nigeria
• TechCabal
• Nairametrics
• The Punch
• Vanguard
• Channels Television
• The Guardian Nigeria
• Premium Times
• Reuters
• Bloomberg
• The Financial Times
• Any other named publication whose editorial standards and fact-checking processes are publicly documented

Tier 3 – Supporting Sources Supporting sources provide sentiment and volume indicators that contextualise Tier 1 and Tier 2 findings but do not independently verify any factual claim. Findings derived solely from Tier 3 sources are labelled explicitly as sentiment indicators rather than verified facts and are always accompanied by the volume and date range of the data on which they are based. Supporting sources include:

• Google Play Store ratings and user reviews
• Apple App Store ratings and user reviews
• User discussions and complaint threads on Nairaland
• User posts and complaint threads on X (formerly Twitter)
• User posts and complaint threads on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms
• WhatsApp group discussions where Brands.Ng has access

A claim that appears exclusively in Tier 3 sources and has not been corroborated by a Tier 1 or Tier 2 source is presented as unverified user sentiment, not as a finding, and is labelled as such in the report.

Part Four: Data Collection Standards

4.1 Data collection window Every Brands.Ng Intelligence report specifies an exact data collection window – the start date and end date of the period during which data was gathered. Data collected outside this window is not used in scoring. The data collection window for each report is stated in the report’s methodology section and in the report’s cover page. Quarterly reports use a 30-day data collection window ending no more than 14 days before the report’s publication date.

4.2 Data recording requirements For every data point collected, the following must be recorded and included in the report’s data appendix: the exact search query or access method used to retrieve the data, the URL of the source accessed, the date and time of access, the exact figure or text retrieved, and the Tier classification of the source. Data points for which any of these elements cannot be documented are not used in scoring.

4.3 Gap documentation When a data point that the methodology requires cannot be retrieved — because the source is inaccessible, the entity does not publish the relevant information, or the data does not exist for the reporting period — the gap is documented explicitly in both the methodology section and the data appendix. The entity’s score on the affected dimension reflects the gap: an entity that does not publicly disclose its pricing, for example, receives a lower transparency score than one that does, because non-disclosure is itself a finding about how the entity treats consumers.

4.4 Verification requirement Every specific numerical claim in a Brands.Ng Intelligence report must be traceable to a named, documented source. The phrase “according to industry sources” does not meet the Brands.Ng Intelligence citation standard. If a claim cannot be attributed to a named source, it is not published as a finding.

Part Five: The Scoring Framework

5.1 Universal dimensions Every Brands.Ng Intelligence report that evaluates consumer-facing financial or commercial entities scores those entities on the following universal dimensions. Additional sector-specific dimensions may be added for individual report categories, as documented in Part Six.

Dimension 1: App store rating and review sentiment (default weight: 20%)

This dimension measures the quality of the consumer experience as documented on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. It is the most accessible large-sample measure of user experience available for consumer-facing digital platforms.

Data sources: Google Play Store listing (Tier 3), Apple App Store listing (Tier 3).

Data points collected: Star rating to one decimal place, total review count, date of most recent version update, and qualitative sentiment analysis of the 20 most recent reviews categorised by complaint type and praise type.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: Combined rating of 4.5 or above with more than 100,000 reviews and predominantly positive recent sentiment
• 7-8: Combined rating of 4.0-4.4 or rating of 4.5+ with fewer than 100,000 reviews
• 5-6: Combined rating of 3.5-3.9 regardless of review volume
• 3-4: Combined rating of 3.0-3.4 or rating above 3.0 with predominantly negative recent sentiment
• 1-2: Combined rating below 3.0 or platform not available on major app stores without documented reason

Weight rationale: App store ratings represent the largest publicly available sample of Nigerian consumer experience data for digital platforms. The 20% weight reflects the significant value of this data while acknowledging the Tier 3 classification of app store reviews, which cannot be independently verified as originating from Nigerian users or as authentic rather than incentivised

Dimension 2: Complaint volume and sentiment (default weight: 20%)

This dimension measures the volume, recency, and severity of documented consumer complaints across public platforms. It is an inverse dimension – higher complaint volume and severity produce lower scores.

Data sources: Nairaland (Tier 3), X/Twitter (Tier 3), secondary news coverage of consumer complaints (Tier 2).

Data points collected: Number of complaint threads on Nairaland in the reporting period, number of complaint-related search results on X in the reporting period, dominant complaint categories by frequency, and whether complaints show a pattern of resolution or non-resolution.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: Minimal complaint presence across all platforms; complaints that exist are predominantly resolved; no complaint pattern visible in secondary news coverage
• 7-8: Low complaint presence; some unresolved complaints but no dominant failure pattern
• 5-6: Moderate complaint presence with one identifiable dominant complaint category; mixed resolution pattern
• 3-4: High complaint presence with multiple dominant complaint categories; predominantly unresolved pattern; complaint coverage in secondary news sources
• 1-2: Very high complaint presence; dominant pattern of non-resolution; significant secondary news coverage of consumer complaints; evidence of systemic operational failure

Weight rationale: Consumer complaint data is the most direct available signal of the gap between an entity’s marketing claims and its actual operational performance. The 20% weight reflects its importance while acknowledging that complaint volume is partly a function of user base size – a platform with 30 million users will generate more visible complaints than one with 300,000, even if the complaint rate per user is identical. Where user base size data is available, it is used to calculate complaint rate per million users rather than raw complaint volume.

Dimension 3: Regulatory standing and compliance record (default weight: 25%)

This dimension measures the entity’s relationship with its primary regulator, the currency of its operating licence, and its compliance history within the reporting period and the preceding 24 months.

Data sources: CBN official website and circulars (Tier 1), FCCPC published lists (Tier 1), SEC registration database (Tier 1), secondary news coverage of regulatory actions (Tier 2).

Data points collected: Licence category and tier, date of most recent licence confirmation or renewal, whether the entity received the January 2026 CBN national licence upgrade where applicable, number and value of regulatory fines in the past 24 months, number of regulatory directives or warnings in the past 24 months, and whether the entity is currently operating all products and services within the scope of its licence.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: Highest available licence tier (national licence where applicable); clean compliance record with no fines or sanctions in 24 months; no known licence scope violations
• 7-8: Appropriate licence tier; one minor regulatory directive or warning in 24 months with documented resolution; no fines
• 5-6: Appropriate licence tier; one regulatory fine in 24 months, or two or more directives; or unresolved licence scope question
• 3-4: Lower licence tier than operations warrant; multiple fines in 24 months; or one significant fine (above ₦500 million)
• 1-2: Operating without appropriate licence; multiple significant fines; active enforcement action; or known licence suspension

Weight rationale: Regulatory standing carries the highest single weight (25%) in the composite score because it is the most objective available signal of institutional risk. A fine from the CBN is a documented regulatory judgement on the entity’s compliance, not a consumer opinion. The 25% weight reflects the primacy of verified institutional evidence over sentiment data.

Dimension 4: Consumer deposit protection (default weight: 15%)

This dimension measures the formal protection available to consumers who hold funds with the entity, based on the entity’s licence category and the corresponding NDIC deposit insurance ceiling.

Data sources: NDIC official publications (Tier 1), CBN licence classification (Tier 1).

Data points collected: Entity licence category, NDIC insurance tier applicable to that licence category, maximum per-depositor coverage ceiling.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: Deposit Money Bank or Mobile Money Operator licence with ₦5 million NDIC coverage per depositor
• 6-8: Microfinance Bank licence with ₦2 million NDIC coverage per depositor
• 3-5: Payment Service Bank or other licence category with lower or less clearly defined coverage
• 1-2: No NDIC coverage; entity not covered by deposit insurance framework

Weight rationale: Deposit insurance is a binary structural protection – either consumers’ funds are insured or they are not, and the ceiling determines how much is protected in the event of institutional failure. The 15% weight reflects that this dimension measures structural protection rather than operational performance, which is important but less variable across entities than complaint volume or regulatory compliance.

Dimension 5: Regulatory fine and sanction severity (default weight: 10%)

This dimension is an inverse scoring dimension that specifically weights the recency and magnitude of financial penalties and formal sanctions issued against the entity.

Data sources: CBN circulars and press releases (Tier 1), FCCPC enforcement notices (Tier 1), secondary news coverage (Tier 2).

Data points collected: Number of fines in past 24 months, total value of fines in past 24 months, most recent fine date, whether any fine was issued in the current reporting period.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: No fines or sanctions in 24 months
• 7-8: One fine below ₦100 million in 24 months, more than 12 months ago
• 5-6: One fine between ₦100 million and ₦500 million in 24 months, or one fine within the current reporting period
• 3-4: One fine above ₦500 million, or two or more fines in 24 months
• 1-2: Multiple significant fines totalling above ₦1 billion in 24 months, or active enforcement action as of the reporting date

Weight rationale: This dimension overlaps partially with Dimension 3 (regulatory standing) but is scored separately because fine magnitude and recency carry specific information that a general licence tier score cannot capture. An entity with a national licence and a ₦1 billion fine in the current reporting period should score differently from one with a national licence and no fines, and this dimension ensures that distinction is captured.

Dimension 6: Pricing transparency and fee competitiveness (default weight: 10%)

This dimension measures whether the entity publicly discloses its fees, interest rates, and product terms in a format that consumers can access and understand before committing to the product.

Data sources: Entity’s official website pricing page (Tier 1 where available), official product terms documents (Tier 1 where available), secondary journalism on fee changes (Tier 2).

Data points collected: Whether fees are publicly disclosed on the entity’s website, whether the fee disclosure is current (updated within the past 6 months), whether fees can be accessed without creating an account or downloading the app, and how the entity’s fees compare to the sector average as established by the data collected for all entities in the report.

Scoring rubric:

• 9-10: All fees and product terms publicly disclosed on website without login requirement; disclosure is current and comprehensive; fees are at or below sector average
• 7-8: Fees publicly disclosed but require navigating to a non-prominent page or downloading a document; disclosure is current
• 5-6: Partial fee disclosure; some fees require app download or account creation to access
• 3-4: Minimal public fee disclosure; most fees only discoverable after account creation
• 1-2: No public fee disclosure; consumers cannot determine costs before committing to the product

Weight rationale: Pricing transparency is a consumer protection issue as much as a competitive positioning issue. The 10% weight reflects that transparency is a meaningful differentiator but a less fundamental risk signal than regulatory compliance or consumer deposit protection.

5.2 Composite score calculation

The composite score for each entity is calculated as follows:

Composite Score = (Dimension 1 score × 0.20) + (Dimension 2 score × 0.20) + (Dimension 3 score × 0.25) + (Dimension 4 score × 0.15) + (Dimension 5 score × 0.10) + (Dimension 6 score × 0.10)

All dimension scores are on a scale of 1 to 10. The composite score therefore falls between 1.00 and 10.00. Composite scores are reported to two decimal places.

5.3 The common sense check

After calculating composite scores, Brands.Ng applies a common sense check before finalising rankings. If the composite score produces a ranking that contradicts the weight of qualitative evidence across multiple dimensions — for example, if an entity with a composite score of 7.8 has received a major regulatory fine within the reporting period that the scoring rubric did not fully capture – the research team documents the tension and, where necessary, applies a documented editorial adjustment with a full explanation published in the methodology section of that specific report. The common sense check is not a mechanism for adjusting scores to match preferred outcomes. It is a mechanism for catching cases where the arithmetic of the scoring rubric fails to capture a finding that the totality of the evidence makes clear.

Part Six: Sector-Specific Methodology Variations

Different sectors require different data sources and sometimes different scoring dimensions. The following documents the standard variation for the most common Brands.ng Intelligence report categories.

6.1 Digital lending and loan apps Reports evaluating digital lending platforms add FCCPC registration status as a mandatory Tier 1 data point. The regulatory standing dimension (Dimension 3) incorporates FCCPC compliance alongside CBN compliance. The deposit protection dimension (Dimension 4) is replaced by a borrower protection dimension that scores whether the entity publishes its APR, late payment penalties, and debt collection policies in a format consumers can access before taking a loan.

6.2 Logistics and delivery services Reports evaluating logistics companies replace the app store dimension partially with a delivery success rate dimension where data is publicly available. The deposit protection dimension is replaced by a service liability dimension that scores whether the entity publishes its compensation policy for lost or damaged packages and how that policy compares to industry standard.

6.3 Consumer goods brands Reports evaluating consumer goods brands add SON (Standards Organisation of Nigeria) and NAFDAC certification status as Tier 1 data points within the regulatory standing dimension. The deposit protection dimension is replaced by a product safety and recall history dimension.

6.4 Educational institutions Reports evaluating universities or educational institutions add NUC accreditation status as a mandatory Tier 1 data point. The deposit protection dimension is replaced by a graduate outcome dimension incorporating available employment and professional examination data.

Part Seven: Publication Standards

7.1 Correction policy When a specific factual error in a published Brands.Ng Intelligence report is identified – whether by Brands.Ng, by a reader, by an entity being evaluated, or by a journalist – the following process applies:

The error is investigated by the Brands.Ng editorial team within 48 hours of identification. If the error is confirmed, a correction notice is appended to the published report within 72 hours of confirmation. The correction notice states what the original claim was, what the correct information is, and the source that establishes the correction. If the error affects a composite score or ranking, the score and ranking are recalculated and updated, and the change is documented in the correction notice. Brands.Ng does not delete errors – it corrects and documents them, because the correction history is itself a mark of intellectual honesty.

7.2 Complaint and challenge policy An entity that believes its score in a Brands.Ng Intelligence report is based on an error of fact may submit a written challenge to editorial@brands.ng, citing the specific data point it believes to be incorrect and the Tier 1 or Tier 2 source that supports the correction. Brands.Ng will investigate and respond within 14 days. A score will be corrected if the challenge identifies a verifiable factual error. A score will not be changed because the entity disagrees with the weighting methodology, the choice of data sources, or the editorial conclusions drawn from accurate data.

7.3 Edition schedule Brands.Ng Intelligence reports are published quarterly. Each edition uses a fresh 30-day data collection window. Scores are not carried forward from previous editions – every edition is a new measurement. An entity that scored 7.2 in Q2 2026 may score higher or lower in Q3 2026 depending on what the fresh data shows.

7.4 Embargo policy Brands.Ng Intelligence reports are not embargoed before publication. They are not shared with entities being evaluated before publication, with the sole exception of factual verification contacts as described in Section 2.2.

7.5 Reproduction and citation policy Brands.Ng Intelligence reports may be cited by name with attribution to Brands.Ng as the source. Reproduction of report sections in full requires written permission from Brands.Ng and must include a link to the full report. The executive summary and rankings table of any report may be reproduced in full in journalism and policy documents provided Brands.Ng is credited as the source and a link to the full report is included.

Part Eight: Limitations of This Methodology

The following limitations apply to every Brands.Ng Intelligence report and are acknowledged here rather than obscured.

8.1 App store geographic limitation Google Play Store and Apple App Store ratings cannot be filtered by country of origin. Nigerian user ratings cannot be isolated from ratings by users in other countries where the same app is available. This introduces potential geographic noise into Dimension 1 scores. Where the ratio of Nigerian to international users is known from published sources, it is documented. Where it is unknown, the limitation is stated in the report.

8.2 Social media complaint sampling limitation The complaint data collected from X and Nairaland represents visible public complaints rather than total complaints. Users who experience problems but do not post publicly are not captured. Users who post and then delete their posts are not captured. The complaint data is therefore a floor estimate of total complaints, not a census. It is presented as a sentiment indicator rather than a verified complaint rate.

8.3 Self-reported data limitation Where entity data is sourced from the entity’s own website or announcements – user numbers, transaction volumes, revenue figures – that data is presented as self-reported rather than independently verified unless it has been audited and filed with a regulatory body. Self-reported figures are labelled accordingly.

8.4 Regulatory data timeliness limitation CBN and other regulatory publications are not always updated in real time. A regulatory action announced during the reporting period may not appear in official publications until after the reporting period closes. Brands.ng makes reasonable efforts to capture regulatory actions from secondary journalism where official publications lag, but cannot guarantee that all regulatory actions within the reporting window are captured in every report.

8.5 Weighting subjectivity limitation The weights assigned to each scoring dimension reflect Brands.Ng’s editorial judgement about the relative importance of each factor to Nigerian consumers. Different weightings would produce different composite scores and different rankings. The weighting rationale is documented in Part Five to allow readers to assess whether they agree with the relative priorities the weights reflect. Brands.Ng welcomes documented, reasoned challenges to the weighting framework and will consider such challenges in future version updates of this methodology.

Part Nine: Version History and Update Policy

This document is Version 1.0, published June 2026.

Updates to this methodology are published as new versions with documented change logs. A change to any scoring rubric, dimension weight, or data source classification that would affect previously published scores is applied prospectively – it changes future reports but does not retroactively alter published scores. If Brands.Ng believes a methodology change is significant enough to warrant recalculating previously published scores, it publishes a special notation alongside the affected historical reports explaining the change.

Readers, journalists, and researchers who identify gaps, errors, or improvements in this methodology are invited to submit documented feedback to editorial@brands.ng. Feedback that results in a methodology update is acknowledged in the version history of the updated document.

Brands.Ng Intelligence Research Methodology Framework Version 1.0 Published: June 2026. This methodology document may be reproduced in full with attribution to Brands.Ng provided the reproduction includes a link to the original document at brands.ng/intelligence-research-methodology/ Contact: editorial@brands.ng