Last Amended: March 13, 2024
SmartFinance Hub (“SFH”) Privacy Policy for Arkle Finance Limited (“Arkle”) Co-brand solution
1. Introduction
FUNDINGXCHANGE LIMITED (“we”, “us”, “our”) is operating SFH for Brokers and Finance Providers.
This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”), which includes our Cookie Policy, sets out the basis on which in operating SFH, we will collect and process any data that may identify individuals (“personal data”) in the course of operating under the SFH’s Terms of Service (the “Terms of Service”) of which this Privacy Policy forms part.
As defined in the Terms of Service, FXE and Arkle are the joint Controllers of the Customer Personal Data that you provide as part of application. Arkle acts as Controller of any third-party data ingested as part of the application process. We are the Controller of Brokers’ and Finance Providers’ Personal Data provided for the purpose of setting up user accounts.
Capitalised terms not otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy shall have the meaning given to them in the Terms of Service. By personal data, we mean information which, either by itself or combined with other information that is available to us, can, in using SFH, be used to identify you or your Customers, your Customer’s principals, directors, shareholders or anyone employed by you or engaged by you who may access our online systems.
We will process such information in accordance with applicable Data Protection Legislation, whereby the Data Protection Legislation means the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 as it forms part of the law of England and Wales by virtue of section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (the “UK GDPR”)) and all other applicable laws and regulations in the United Kingdom relating to the processing of personal data and privacy, including where applicable, the guidance and codes of practice issued by the Information Commissioner. We are registered with the Office of the Information Commissioner (ZA093024). FXE has a Data Protection officer. To contact the Data Protection Officer or if you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy please send an email to support@smartfinancehub.co.uk.
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) is intended to inform you how personal data is collected, used and disclosed through your use of SFH. This Policy is intended to assist you in making informed decisions about the information shared when using SFH. Please take a minute to read and understand the Policy.
2. The information we collect
As per the Terms of Service, SFH enables Brokers and Finance Providers to input or receive data, to create proposals for and assess lending and financing opportunities (between those Brokers and Finance Providers).
We only collect personal data relevant to evaluating these proposals, issuing “Matches” (the assessment of lending and financing opportunities) via SFH, the administration of user accounts and the enforcement of the Terms of Service. Such data is given by you, on your behalf or on your Customer’s behalf, and it may also include information on your use of SFH and information obtained from those third parties authorised by you to share such information with us, including:
(a) information that you provide on your Customer’s behalf by filling in forms, on SFH, posting user content, requesting further services or reporting a problem;
(b) information about your Customers, their financial interests, or the financial position and performance of their business ;
(c) your Customer’s contact information which may include their email address, telephones numbers and home address, as well as their date of birth;
(d) details about your Customer’s business, which may include details of Directors, Shareholders or Persons of Significant Control. This data will be taken from the open registers at Companies House;
(e) copies of your Customer’s passports or other identification evidence that you provide for anti-money laundering and anti-fraud purposes;
(f) records of telephone calls and any correspondence between you and us;
(g) records of any surveys that you may be asked to complete for research purposes (although you do not have to respond to them);
(h) details of your visits to SFH, including the IP address used and the resources that you access (see also our Cookie Policy);
(i) credit checks from referencing agencies to assess creditworthiness of your Customer’s business .
(j) Information on your use of SFH
We aim to keep your and your Customer’s personal information up to date, so please advise us of any changes by updating your user account or e-mailing support@smartfinancehub.co.uk. You must notify us by emailing support@smartfinancehub.co.uk within 30 days if there is any change in your name, telephone number, e-mail address and/or any other details that we reasonably consider to be material to our dealings with you in relation to the use of SFH.
3. Where we store personal data
Personal data will not be stored outside of the UK, European Economic Area (“EEA”) or in a country deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by any applicable regulator. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that personal data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy.
Once we have received personal data, we will use (and require our suppliers and partners to use) procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access, unlawful processing, accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to it, provided that you comply with your Subscriber responsibilities detailed within the Terms of Service, in particular in relation to security of your usernames and password. However, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure and, while we will do our best to protect personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to SFH and any transmission is at your own risk.
How long we keep personal data
Unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law, we will only hold your and/or your Customer’s personal data on our systems for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Policy or until you request it is deleted.
With your consent, the information that we use to update Brokers and Finance Providers on changes to our technology or new products will be kept with us until you notify us that you no longer wish to receive this information. When you receive communications from us you will have the opportunity to “opt-out” by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in the e-mail. For the avoidance of doubt, in conjunction with your use of SFH, we will never contact your Customer’s without your explicit consent.
4. Use of data
When accepting this Policy and utilising SFH; you instruct us to pass your / your Customer’s data to Arkle for them to assess your proposal (which is necessary to perform our contract with you). When Arkle uses your / your Customer’s personal data in this way, they will become Controller of certain of the Customer Personal Data governed by their relevant privacy policy.
We may use information held about you or your Customer in one or more of the following ways:
(a) to ensure that content on SFH is presented in the most effective manner;
(b) to provide you with information, products or services that you request or which we decide may interest you;
(c) for statistical analysis;
(d) to develop and improve SFH;
(e) to update our records;
(f) to assess your Customer’s creditworthiness in accordance with the provisions of the Terms of Service;
(g) to identify, prevent, detect or tackle fraud, money laundering and other crime;
(h) to carry out checks required by applicable regulation or regulatory guidance;
(i) to keep you informed about product data, proposals you have made or Matches you have selected as the case may be;
(j) to carry out our obligations arising from – and exercise our rights under – any agreements between you and either of us or other users of SFH;
(k) to allow you to participate in interactive features of SFH, when you choose to do so;
(l) to give you any notices under the Terms of Service.
In addition, for reporting and management information purposes, information generated as a result of your use of SFH (e.g. as part of the proposal submission process), will be made available to Arkle. Information will provide insights into Broker usage of SFH to inform management of Arkle’s broker panel and assist with compliance obligations. Information will be reported by brokerage and broker user.
5. The legal basis for processing personal data
Under the Data Protection Legislation, the main grounds that we rely upon in order to process your / your Customer’s personal information are as follows:
a) Necessary for entering into, or performing, a contract – in order to perform obligations that we undertake in providing SFH, or in order to take steps at your request to enter into a contract with us, it will be necessary for us to process your / your Customer’s personal data;
b) Necessary for compliance with a legal obligation – we are subject to certain legal requirements which may require us to process your / your Customer’s personal data. We may also be obliged by law to disclose your / your Customer’s personal data to a regulatory body or law enforcement agency;
c) Necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests - either we, or a third party, will need to process your / your Customer’s personal data for the purposes of our (or a third party’s) legitimate interests, provided we have established that those interests are not overridden by your / your Customer’s rights and freedoms, including your / your Customer’s right to have your / your Customer’s personal data protected. Our legitimate interests include ensuring that our operations are conducted in an appropriate and efficient manner, responding to requests and enquiries from you or a third party, optimising our website and customer experience and informing you about our products and services;
d) Consent – in some circumstances, we may ask for your consent to process your / your Customer’s personal data in a particular way. To the extent that we are processing your / your Customer’s personal data based on your consent, you will have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting us at support@smartfinancehub.co.uk at any time.
6. Disclosure of personal data
We will keep your / your Customer’s personal data confidential and only disclose it to others for the purposes we have outlined, as well as in the following specific circumstances:
(a) to a credit reference agency to check your Customer’s identity and credit profile
(b) to our agents and subcontractors to use for the purpose of operating SFH, including customer support and providing services to us;
(c) to investigate, prevent or detect fraud;
(d) for audit purposes and to meet obligations to any relevant regulatory authority or taxing authority;
(e) if you request us, or give your permission for us to do so;
(f) if we are under a duty to disclose or share your / your Customer’s personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply any agreements to which you / your Customer are / is a party; or to protect our rights, property, or safety, or that of our customers or others (which includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction);
(g) in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;
(h) if substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets; or
(i) if you make an application on our platform through one of our key partners, whereby they already had access to your / your Customer’s personal data through your relationship with them, to that key partner in order to enable accurate linking between their records about you / your Customer and associated records. We may share information, including the status of your application so that they can support you fully and appropriately (as part of your existing relationship with that key partner).
Additional information about the credit reference agencies we use, the data they hold, how they use it and how long they retain it, as well as your / your Customer’s rights in relation to this data, is available via the link to the Credit Reference Agency Information Notices for each agency are set out below:
Experian: experian.co.uk/crain
Equifax: equifax.co.uk/crain
We use a number of third-party organisations to help provide a professional service to our customers. These organisations act as data processors and are strictly controlled in how they may/may not use your / your Customer’s personal data and we remain responsible for the protection of this data. These organisations include:
- Website analytics companies (e.g. to help us monitor how users experience our platform and enabling us to make improvements over time)
- Google Analytics (including the enabling of the User-ID feature) will be used to collect session data from our users, and this may be connected with the userid data field from SFH;
- SFH is protected by Google ReCapture. Their terms of service and privacy policy apply – a link to both documents can be found in the footer of our SFH website.
We will never sell your / your Customer’s personal data to a third party.
7. Your rights
In accordance with the Data Protection Legislation, you have the following rights in respect of your / your Customer’s personal data:
- Right to access: the right to request copies of your / your Customer’s personal data from us, and to confirm the nature of the information and how it is used;
- Right to erase: the right to request that we delete or remove your / your Customer’s personal data from our systems;
- Right to correct: the right to have your / your Customer’s personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
- Right to restrict our use of your / your Customer’s personal data or to withdraw your consent for processing that data: the right to ‘block’ us from using your / your Customer’s personal data or limit the way in which we can use it; and
- Right to object: the right to object to our use of your / your Customer’s personal data.
You can exercise any of these rights by contacting us at support@smartfinancehub.co.uk or calling 020 3695 9206.
We may ask for further identification or confirmation via email if a request is made over the telephone or via postal service. We will aim to respond to all requests within a 30-day period but if the request is complex, we may have to extend this to a 90 day period. We shall notify you within the 30-day period if this is the case. In some cases, the deletion of your / your Customer’s personal data may contravene with our requirements under other regulations, we shall inform you of such if this is the case. Where we have good reason, and if Data Protection Legislation permits, we can refuse your request for a copy of your / your Customer’s personal data, or certain elements of the request. If we refuse your request or any element of it, we will provide you with our reasons for doing so.
Depending on the scope and nature of your request, the ability to port your / your Customer’s personal data to a third party may be subject to the current technical functionality of our systems and processes, but you have the ability to request a copy of your / your Customer’s personal data via the contact details provided.
SFH may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of Finance Providers, businesses, partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that those third parties have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for those policies. Please check those policies before you submit any personal data directly via those websites or to those third parties.
8. Complaints
If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your / your Customer’s personal data, you can contact us to have the matter investigated.
Email – complaints@fxe.co.uk
Phone – 020 3695 9206
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your / your Customer’s personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office https://ico.org.uk
This privacy notice was last updated on 13th March 2024.
We reserve the right to amend or modify this Policy at any time and any changes will be published on SFH. The date of the most recent revision will appear on this page. If we make significant changes to this policy, we may also notify you by other means such as sending an email. Where required by law we will obtain your consent to make these changes.