Certo Rating Index

Certo develops and publishes a periodic, comparative index of public credibility based on governance quality — Certo Rating Index, covering entities, sectors, or countries subject to the Foundation's evaluation activities. The Index is based on aggregated rating results from the Foundation, data on the dynamics of governance quality changes over time, and publicly available comparative data. Each edition of the Index includes a prognostic component indicating expected directions of change based on declared development objectives of evaluated entities and identified trends.

What is Certo Rating

Certo Rating is not an opinion. It is a cryptographic artifact of the process — a record of a decision that exists independently of its creator's infrastructure. Each rating is:

• Verifiable offline — the hash of the rating decision is anchored in external public registers
• Immutable after issuance — neither party can unilaterally revoke or change an issued rating without generating a visible trace
• Publicly auditable — the complete decision path is available for review by authorized entities

Dual-Brain Engine

The heart of the assessment system is the Dual-Brain Engine — a dual-track analysis architecture combining:

Quantitative analytics encompasses:

• Structure of governing and supervisory bodies
• History of changes in body composition
• Documentation of the decision-making process
• Regulatory compliance indicators

Qualitative analytics encompasses:

• Assessment of organizational culture based on internal documents
• Analysis of consistency between declared values and actions
• Verification of conflict of interest management procedures
• Assessment of internal control system effectiveness

Both branches of analysis must independently demonstrate a sufficient level of governance quality for a rating to be issued.

Hard Gates

Hard Gates are seven mandatory conditions, the failure to meet any of which automatically excludes an entity from the rating process regardless of the results of other assessments:

1. No ongoing criminal proceedings against members of governing bodies
2. Regular and documented meetings of statutory bodies
3. No arrears to public authorities (social security fund, tax office, business registry)
4. Current and publicly accessible register of beneficial owners
5. No conflict of interest in the composition of the supervisory body
6. Documented procedure for reporting irregularities (whistleblowing)
7. Consistency of legal and organizational structure with the declared governance model

Failure to meet any of the Hard Gates results in suspension of the rating process until the irregularities are remedied.

Compliance Engine

Compliance Engine verifies the institution's compliance with applicable sectoral and EU-wide regulations. The engine is updated on a continuous basis in line with changes in EU and Polish law.

Compliance assessment includes:

• Sector-specific regulations applicable to a given institution
• EU directives and regulations applicable to the sector
• National implementing provisions
• Industry standards and best practice codes

Break-Glass Protocol

Break-Glass Protocol is an emergency access procedure for rating records in crisis situations — entity liquidation, insolvency proceedings, criminal investigation by law enforcement authorities.

The Protocol specifies:

• Who has access to records and under what circumstances
• How each access instance is documented
• What notification mechanisms apply to assessed entities
• How data integrity is ensured in the disclosure process

Certo Score and Certo Vector

Each issued rating consists of two elements:

Certo Score — a synthetic assessment of governance quality expressed on a numerical scale. It enables comparison of entities within a sector and over time.

Certo Vector — the direction of change in governance quality in the most recent assessment period. It takes five values: ++ (significant improvement), + (improvement), no change, − (deterioration), −− (significant deterioration).

The combination of Score and Vector provides a complete picture of both the current state of governance and its dynamics.