Indices Methodology

A buyer-safe overview of what TEER, RVI, cost-friction RCI, and reserved constraint RCI measure, how they are computed, and how to interpret them across currency pairs.

This page explains the public methodology boundary. Full parameter settings, weighting features, source lineage, and backtest evidence are available to qualified institutional clients on request. Contact sales.

Last updated: June 24, 2026

Four Separate Axes

TEER, RVI, cost-friction RCI, and constraint RCI are separate measurements. They are not interchangeable, and one axis should not be used to silently fill another.

Axis	Measures	Does not measure	Status
TEER `teer_rate`	Recipient effective rate after fees and FX markup.	Outages, policy shocks, behavioral signals.	Live when publish gates pass.
RVI `rvi_bps`	Provider effective-rate dispersion, normalized in basis points.	Incident counts, sanctions, or policy events as direct numeric inputs.	Live when publish gates pass.
Cost-Friction RCI `cost_friction_rci`	Quote-derived fee and spread burden as a weighted cost ratio.	Raw FX volatility or non-price operational constraints.	Live; older aliases may appear as `rci` or `rci_ratio`.
Constraint RCI `constraint_rci`	Non-price friction: rail availability, provider dropout, policy pressure, capital controls, and adjudicated observations.	Fees, FX rates, or quote-derived spreads.	Reserved beta; null until release gates pass.

Shared Methodology Controls

Every index point starts with normalized quotes for a specific amount bucket, method profile, and currency pair. We then apply source-rights filters, provider eligibility, freshness checks, coverage thresholds, and methodology versioning before publishing any metric.

What aggregation does

Normalizes provider quotes into effective-rate and cost-ratio space.
Uses provider weights to avoid treating every observed quote as equally representative.
Stores methodology, parser, and schema versions so historical outputs can be reproduced.

What public docs expose

We publish index semantics, directionality, units, confidence, and suppression behavior.
We do not publish provider-level raw quotes, proprietary weighting features, or buyer-specific source lineage on this public page.

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Formula Notation

i is one eligible provider quote.

w_i is that quote's provider weight.

quoted_fx_rate_i is the provider's quoted FX rate.

mid_market_rate is the benchmark FX rate for the pair/date.

Weight values and feature derivation are proprietary; the aggregation formulas below are the public-safe metric definitions.

Index 01

TEER — True Effective Exchange Rate

TEER is the price-level index. It represents the effective exchange rate a recipient receives after explicit fees and FX markup are accounted for.

Methodology

For each eligible quote, Remit-Scout estimates the after-fee effective rate and compares the result with the mid-market reference rate captured for the same currency pair and date. The weighted cost ratio is then converted back into an effective rate: TEER equals the mid-market rate multiplied by one minus the weighted cost ratio.

Formula

\begin{aligned} \text{eff}_i &= \frac{(\text{send}_i - \text{fee}_i)\cdot \text{rate}_i}{\text{send}_i} \\[6pt] \text{cost}_i &= \frac{1}{\text{send}_i}\left(\text{fee}_i + \frac{(\text{send}_i - \text{fee}_i)(\text{mid} - \text{rate}_i)}{\text{mid}}\right) \\[6pt] \overline{\text{cost}} &= \frac{\sum_i w_i \cdot \text{cost}_i}{\sum_i w_i} \\[6pt] \text{TEER} &= \text{mid}\cdot\left(1 - \overline{\text{cost}}\right) \end{aligned}

where send = transfer amount, fee = provider fee, rate = quoted FX rate, mid = mid-market reference rate, w_i = provider weight, eff = after-fee effective rate, and cost = cost ratio per provider.

Inputs

Send amount, fee amount, quoted FX rate, mid-market FX reference, rights-matrix eligibility, amount bucket, method profile, and provider weight.

Output

A corridor-level effective exchange rate, plus confidence and suppression metadata for auditability.

Provider weight derivation, suppression parameters, and backtest evidence are available to qualified institutional clients on request.

Interpretation

Higher TEER means a better effective rate for the recipient.

Lower TEER signals higher friction in the corridor.

Promotional rates are excluded to avoid teaser-rate distortion.

Index 02

Cost-Friction RCI — Quote-Derived Cost Burden

Cost-friction RCI is the quote-derived cost-burden metric. It captures how much of the send amount is lost to explicit fees and FX spread, before any non-price constraint signals are considered.

Methodology

For each eligible quote, Remit-Scout combines the explicit fee burden with the implied FX-spread burden versus the mid-market reference rate. The provider-level cost ratios are aggregated with provider weights into the buyer-facing cost_friction_rci value.

Formula

\begin{aligned} \text{RCI}_{\text{cost}} &= \frac{\sum_{i\,\in\,\text{eligible}} w_i \cdot \text{cost}_i}{\sum_{i\,\in\,\text{eligible}} w_i} \\[6pt] \text{RCI}_{\text{cost}}^{\;\text{bps}} &= \text{RCI}_{\text{cost}} \times 10{,}000 \end{aligned}

This reuses the same quote-level cost_ratio_i defined above, filtered by cost-friction eligibility.

Inputs

Eligible quote-derived fee burden, spread-derived markup burden, mid-market reference, rights-matrix eligibility, and provider weight.

Output

A ratio that can be expressed as a percent, plus leader/median cost-friction basis-point fields where available.

Legacy API fields may still expose rci or rci_ratio for compatibility. Buyer-facing docs and exports should treat those aliases as cost_friction_rci, not true non-price RCI.

Interpretation

Higher cost-friction RCI means more quote-derived cost burden.

Lower cost-friction RCI means a more efficient quoted price surface.

Reported as a ratio (0-1). API clients can express it in percent or basis points.

Index 03

RVI — Remittance Volatility Index

RVI measures the weighted dispersion of effective rates across providers. We also publish RVI_bps for standardized comparison.

Methodology

RVI captures how widely eligible providers disagree on effective pricing in a currency pair. Remit-Scout computes weighted effective-rate dispersion and normalizes it against TEER so buyers can compare noisy and stable markets in basis-point terms.

Formula

\begin{aligned} \text{RVI} &= \sqrt{\max\!\left(\frac{\sum_i w_i\,\text{eff}_i^{2} - \dfrac{\left(\sum_i w_i\,\text{eff}_i\right)^{2}}{\sum_i w_i}}{\sum_i w_i - \dfrac{\sum_i w_i^{2}}{\sum_i w_i}},\ 0\right)} \\[10pt] \text{RVI}^{\;\text{bps}} &= \frac{\text{RVI}}{\text{TEER}} \times 10{,}000 \end{aligned}

A reliability-weighted dispersion of effective rates (weighted sample variance with a bias correction), then normalized against TEER to express volatility in basis points.

Inputs

Eligible provider effective rates, provider weights, TEER denominator, and rights-matrix eligibility filters.

Output

rvi_bps, a basis-point dispersion measure with confidence and suppression metadata.

RVI is suppressed when eligible-provider depth, TEER, or outlier gates fail.

Interpretation

Higher RVI means providers disagree more on pricing.

Lower RVI means tighter market consensus.

RVI_bps standardizes volatility relative to TEER.

Reserved Index

Constraint RCI — Non-Price Friction

Constraint RCI is reserved for non-price constraints: provider outages, payout-lane disablements, sanctions or policy markers, capital-control evidence, collection failures, and adjudicated human observations. It is separate from cost-friction RCI.

Current status

The buyer-facing pair-evidence schema reserves constraintRci, but it remains beta-unavailable until source-rights, confidence, freshness, suppression, and validation gates pass. When those gates do not pass, the value stays null rather than being imputed from price data.

Publication status

Reserved · not yet published

constraintRci stays null until every gate below clears. It is never imputed from price data.

Publication gates

Methodology approved
Source rights approved
Confidence model documented
Suppression taxonomy documented
Freshness measured
Contributing signals listed
No PII or unadjudicated observations
Not a duplicate of TEER, RVI, or cost-friction RCI

Allowed future inputs

Provider health, rail availability, policy/sanctions evidence, capital-control indicators, and redacted adjudicated observations.

Blocked inputs

Raw FX rates, raw fees, and quote-derived spreads. Those belong in TEER and cost-friction RCI.

Interpretation

Higher constraint RCI would mean more operational or policy friction, not necessarily worse quoted pricing.

Null constraint RCI means the non-price evidence gates have not passed.

Constraint signals may appear as beta context or composite contributors only when confidence and source-rights metadata are exposed.

Data Inputs & Controls

Every published point is governed by filtering and audit rules. Providers must pass the rights matrix, promotional pricing is stripped, methodology versions are recorded, and minimum coverage thresholds apply.

Rights Matrix

Each metric has its own provider allowlist
Only active, licensed providers are included
Suppressed rows expose metadata, not metric values

Point-In-Time Truth

Output records carry parser, schema, and methodology versions so historical values can be reproduced for the timestamp and methodology in effect.

Confidence & Suppression

Minimum coverage thresholds apply. Two or more eligible providers may make a metric publishable, three or more can support claim-grade language, and five or more supports high-confidence language before non-provider gates. When coverage is insufficient, index points are suppressed and metric values remain null.

Need the indices or the full technical methodology?

Enterprise customers can access TEER, RVI, cost-friction RCI, and approved methodology evidence via API and scheduled exports. Full technical documentation is available on request.

Contact sales View general methodology