Diligence
How RunPayway verifies a proof.
RunPayway™ does not verify what anybody says. It establishes what authorized financial evidence supports.
The progression
Seven stages, in one order.
A proof that cannot clear a stage does not quietly continue past it.
- Authorized evidence
- The person the proof is about authorizes a financial source for this request. Nothing is read without that, and the authorization covers this request alone.
- Proof subject match
- RunPayway™ establishes the required ownership or control relationship between that person and the financial source. Being able to sign in is not that relationship.
- Freshness check
- The evidence is timestamped as of when the source says it applied, and measured against what the request requires.
- Integrity check
- Duplication, conflicting sources, stale evidence and unresolved anomalies are looked for. Any of them stops automatic verification.
- Requested fact established
- The qualifying evidence is evaluated against the exact fact and threshold that were requested, and against nothing wider.
- Proof issued
- A proof is issued carrying the result, the threshold, the evidence and verification times, the status, and the method version that established it.
- Independently verifiable
- The recipient can check the proof against its RunPayway™ verification record rather than against the artifact in front of them.
The word itself
What VERIFIED means, and what it does not.
RunPayway™ verified that the requested fact was established from authorized financial evidence.
For the one fact RunPayway™ establishes today
RunPayway™ verified that qualifying funds met or exceeded the requested threshold using authorized financial evidence.
What a proof is bound to
- Subject-bound. It is about one named proof subject, and nobody else can present it as their own.
- Request-bound. It answers the fact and threshold that were requested, and does not widen to anything else.
- Method-bound. It carries the method version that established it, and later method changes do not rewrite it.
- Time-bound. It states when the evidence applied and when the fact was verified. No proof outlives its evidence.
What VERIFIED does not mean
- That the funds will remain available forever
- That the funds will still be present at closing, unless the proof is refreshed at that time
- That the recipient should approve the transaction
- That the person is creditworthy
- That the person is eligible for financing
- That the funds are unencumbered, unless that was separately established
- That the source of the funds was approved, unless that was separately established
- That every asset the person owns has been reviewed
- That the person cannot move the money later
RunPayway™ establishes the requested fact at the stated time. Nothing more.
Two questions
The result and the proof are two different questions.
The result says what the evidence established. The status says whether the proof still stands. They are separate on purpose, and a proof can carry one of each.
Result: what the evidence established
- VERIFIED. The requested fact was established from the authorized evidence.
- NEEDS ATTENTION. A specific issue needs review or correction before RunPayway™ can conclude.
- NOT VERIFIED. The requested fact could not be established from the authorized evidence.
Status: whether the proof still stands
- CURRENT. Issued, and still fresh enough under the freshness policy that applies to it.
- REFRESH REQUIRED. Another check is required before this proof is relied on.
- EXPIRED. Past the freshness window that applied to it.
- SUPERSEDED. A later proof of the same fact has been issued for the same person.
- REVOKED. Withdrawn by RunPayway™. It may not be relied on, whatever it says.
- DISPUTED. Its correctness is under challenge and has not been settled either way.
A proof can carry one of each. VERIFIED and EXPIRED together means: The requested fact was established at the stated time, and the proof is no longer fresh enough for the requirement in front of you now. Ask for a refresh.
The evidence
What cannot produce a VERIFIED proof.
A VERIFIED proof rests on evidence from an approved financial source, with the source, the relationship, the freshness, the integrity and the sufficiency of that evidence all established.
- A balance the customer types in
- A screenshot of an account
- A PDF that can be edited
- An email from anybody saying the money is there
- An assurance from anybody that the funds are there
NO SELF-REPORTED FINANCIAL NUMBER CAN CREATE VERIFIED.
Account access is not account ownership.
Six things get called “the account is theirs”, and each one is routinely treated as establishing the next. None of them does. If the last is not established, the result is NEEDS ATTENTION and no straight-through VERIFIED is issued.
01Session control
Somebody is operating a browser session. It does not establish who they are.
02Institution authentication
A financial institution accepted a credential. It does not establish who presented it.
03Account access
That credential can read an account. It does not establish whose account it is.
04Account ownership
A named party owns the account. It does not establish that the named party is the proof subject.
05Authorized control
A party may direct the funds without owning them outright. It is a different relationship from ownership, and it is not a weaker version of it.
06Proof-subject match
The party with the required relationship is the subject of this request. This is the determination a proof depends on, and it is the only one that can support it.
The required relationship is a kind, not a yes or no. The architecture has to admit sole ownership, joint ownership, trust relationships, business accounts, authorized control, other governed ownership or control relationships. None of them is implemented today.
Freshness
How current a proof is, stated as three times.
A proof that says only that it is current has told you nothing you can check. Each one carries when the evidence applied, when RunPayway™ evaluated it, and when another check is required.
- Evidence as of
- When the source says the evidence applied.
- Verified at
- When RunPayway™ evaluated that evidence against the request.
- Refresh by
- When another check is required under the applicable freshness policy.
There is no single freshness period, and RunPayway™ does not publish one. How recent evidence must be depends on the proof type, the request, the organization's policy, the source, the asset and the method version in force.
NO PROOF OUTLIVES ITS EVIDENCE.
Integrity
What happens when the evidence disagrees with itself.
RunPayway™ does not add up every balance it can see. Where evidence could count the same money twice, or where sources disagree about ownership or about what is true, the result is NEEDS ATTENTION and not an estimate.
- The same account reached through two sources
- A transfer that appears as funds in two places at once
- Sources that disagree about who owns an account
- Evidence that is older than the request allows
- An anomaly that is not resolved
CONFLICT DOES NOT PRODUCE A BEST GUESS.
The fact
Qualifying funds are not the same as everything you own.
The fact V1 establishes is about qualifying funds under the governed method, not about total wealth, every balance or every asset. Whether a given asset counts is a question with several separate parts, and they are not one question.
- Asset truth
- Whether the asset exists, on evidence.
- Valuation
- What it is worth, and on what basis.
- Ownership or control
- The subject's required relationship to it.
- Liquidity
- Whether it is available as funds.
- Encumbrance
- Whether something else already has a claim on it.
- Institutional treatment
- Which of it your policy counts. Your rule, not ours.
- Decision
- What your organization does about it. Yours alone.
The first five are what RunPayway™ works on. The sixth is your policy and the seventh is your decision, and RunPayway™ makes neither.
Change
When the financial information changes.
An issued proof is never edited, recalculated or quietly corrected. A refreshed check produces a new proof, and the previous one is marked superseded and kept as the record of what was established at its own verification time.
RPW-P-1001
$500,000+ VERIFIED
STATUS SUPERSEDED
RPW-P-1002
$500,000+ VERIFIED
STATUS CURRENT
Illustrative. No proof is issued by RunPayway™ today.
If the refreshed evidence no longer establishes the fact, the new proof carries the result the evidence supports. The previous proof is still not rewritten.
What a refresh looks like.
- The recipient sees
- REFRESH REQUIRED, and one action: Request refresh.
- The proof subject sees
- A current proof is required for this request. One action: Refresh my proof.
- RunPayway then
- Rechecks the authorized evidence under the authorization and the policy that apply. The earlier proof is not altered.
CHANGE CREATES A NEW PROOF. IT DOES NOT REWRITE HISTORY.
A proof is bound to the method that established it.
Every proof records the method version in force when it was issued. When the method changes, new proofs use the new version and existing proofs keep the one they were established under, so a proof read a year later still means what it meant on the day it was issued.
SAME GOVERNED INPUTS + SAME GOVERNED METHOD = SAME RESULT.
People
Where a person may intervene, and where a person may not.
Some evidence is genuinely ambiguous, and a reviewer settles it. What a reviewer can never do is supply what the evidence does not contain.
A reviewer may
- Resolve ambiguity about ownership or control
- Resolve how a piece of evidence should be classified
- Resolve a bounded conflict between sources
- Review an exception
- Request additional evidence
A reviewer may not
- Type a balance into the system and call it verified
- Override missing source evidence with an opinion
- Manufacture an ownership or control relationship
- Fabricate freshness
- Issue VERIFIED because a transaction is important
HUMAN REVIEW MAY RESOLVE AN EXCEPTION. HUMAN REVIEW MAY NOT MANUFACTURE EVIDENCE.
Independent verification
Every proof can be checked.
A RunPayway™ proof is not trusted because somebody sends you a screenshot. Its RunPayway™ verification record shows what was established, when it was established, and whether the proof is still current.
Proof issuance is being built. No proof is issued today, so there is nothing to look up yet, and this page will keep saying so until there is.
What a verification record answers, once it exists
- The proof reference
- Who the proof is about
- The fact that was requested, and the threshold
- When the fact was verified
- Whether the proof is current, superseded, expired, revoked or disputed
A verification record shows the standing of the proof. It never exposes the financial evidence behind it, and a recipient learns nothing from it that the proof itself does not already disclose.
THE ARTIFACT IS NOT THE AUTHORITY. THE RUNPAYWAY™ VERIFICATION RECORD IS.