About

How FinTrakker works

Our mission, our data sources, and the methodology behind our license monitoring platform.

Mission

Removing the manual work from multi-state licensing

Fintech companies operating across multiple states face a persistent compliance burden: tracking license renewals, monitoring regulatory changes, and keeping surety bond requirements current across dozens of jurisdictions. Most teams handle this with spreadsheets, calendar reminders, and manual NMLS lookups.

FinTrakker was built to replace that process. Our platform monitors NMLS Consumer Access, state financial regulator portals, and FinCEN's MSB Registrant Search on a continuous basis, surfaces changes the day they occur, and delivers structured alerts to your inbox, webhook endpoint, or RSS reader. The goal is to give compliance officers and regulatory consultants a single reliable source of truth for license status across every jurisdiction where their company operates.

50+
States + DC monitored
14,000+
Licensed entities monitored
2x daily
Data refresh cadence
<4 min
Avg. alert delivery time
Data Sources

Where our data comes from

All data is sourced from official government portals. FinTrakker does not generate, estimate, or extrapolate license status. We read directly from the authoritative sources that regulators themselves publish.

NMLS Consumer Access
nmls.stateregistry.org
The primary source for state-regulated money transmitters, mortgage companies, payday lenders, and other financial services licensees. Covers all 58 state agencies participating in NMLS. We poll for license status, expiration dates, NMLS IDs, and licensee information. Update frequency: daily polling against real-time NMLS data.
FinCEN MSB Registrant Search
fincen.gov/msb-registrant-search
Federal MSB registration status from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. MSB registration is not a license but is a mandatory compliance marker for money services businesses operating at the federal level. We cross-reference MSB registration against state license records. Update frequency: weekly polling.
State Portal Direct Monitoring
14 state portals
Fourteen state regulators maintain separate licensing databases outside NMLS or publish data that NMLS does not capture. We monitor these portals directly: CA DFPI, NY DFS, TX DOB, FL OFR, IL IDFPR, WA DFI, MA DOB, GA DBF, OH OFI, AZ DIFI, CO DORA, NV FID, MI DIFS, NC OCCC. Update frequency: daily.
State Regulatory Bulletins
Agency publication feeds
We monitor published regulatory guidance, circular letters, and agency bulletins from state financial regulators. This includes surety bond requirement changes, examination scheduling notices, annual report deadlines, and new licensing guidance. Changes are surfaced within 24 hours of publication.
Methodology

How we detect and classify changes

Our scraper infrastructure polls each data source twice daily. On each run, we compare the current state of every monitored license record against the last known state stored in our database. When a difference is detected, we classify the change by severity and generate a structured alert.

Severity Classification

  • Critical License has expired or been revoked. Immediate action required. Operating with an expired license may violate state law.
  • High License renewal due within 30 days, or a required document (surety bond, annual report) is past its due date.
  • Medium License renewal due within 90 days, or a regulatory change affecting your license type has been published.
  • Low License status change (e.g., from Pending to Active), or an informational update with no immediate compliance deadline.
Update Schedule

When data is refreshed

Scrapers run at 7:17 AM UTC and 7:17 PM UTC daily. This captures overnight processing by state agencies (most complete batch updates in the early morning hours UTC) and afternoon updates for agencies operating in US Pacific time.

Average alert delivery is under 4 minutes from the scraper detecting a change to the email or webhook arriving. For webhooks, delivery is attempted immediately with 3 retry attempts on failure.

Accuracy note
All data is sourced from official government portals and reflects what those portals publish. Some state portals update on their own schedules: certain states process renewals in batch on a weekly or monthly cycle, which means a renewed license may not appear in our data until the state processes it. FinTrakker displays the last verified date on every record so you know exactly when we last confirmed the status. For critical compliance decisions, always verify directly with the issuing agency.
Coverage

Platform statistics (30-day trailing)

States covered
50 + DC
All U.S. jurisdictions including DC, Puerto Rico, Guam
Uptime (30-day)
99.2%
Scraper reliability across all data sources
NMLS coverage
47 states
Via NMLS Consumer Access directly
Direct portal integrations
14 states
Additional direct portal monitoring beyond NMLS
Built by Firmhound

About the team

FinTrakker is a product of Firmhound, a data intelligence platform that monitors 14 government data domains including federal regulatory filings, SEC submissions, grant databases, lobbying disclosures, and financial licensing. Firmhound was founded to give businesses programmatic access to government data that is technically public but practically difficult to monitor at scale.

Firmhound
Firmhound's product suite covers financial licensing (FinTrakker), federal regulations (FedRegWatch), SEC filings (EDGARwatch), congressional trades (SenatorTrades), and ten additional data products. All products share the same API infrastructure, authentication system, and delivery channels.
Visit firmhound.com →