Clients and Client's Debtors Privacy Notice

This privacy notice applies to all Merchant Factors clients and clients’ debtors.

The purpose of this privacy notice is to help you understand how we collect, use, share, protect and store your personal information.

We may update this privacy notice occasionally. We will inform you when we do.

Please email paul@mfactors.co.za if you have any questions.

1. What personal information we collect and generate

We collect information that helps us determine a client’s eligibility for our services (i.e. factoring, trade finance and bridging finance).

We collect:

all the information in our client credit application form;
all the information in our debtor consent form;
credit profiles of the clients and the clients’ debtors obtained from registered credit bureau
credit profiles of the client’s directors or members obtained from registered credit bureau;
credit profiles of the clients’ debtors’ directors or members obtained from registered credit bureau; and
bank codes of the clients and the clients’ debtors obtained from registered credit bureau.

We generate information about clients and clients’ debtors in the form of records.

We generate:

information about the creditworthiness of clients and clients’ debtors based on the information we collect;
information about what services we have granted a client (e.g. factoring, trade finance or bridging finance) and the value of these services (e.g. the credit limit afforded to a client);
information about how well clients or clients’ debtors have performed financially; and
information about how the client’s or the client’s debtors’ accounts with us are conducted, i.e. in terms of meeting their payment obligations on their accounts with us.

2. When and why we collect and process your personal information

When we collect and use your personal information	Why we collect your personal information
When we generate a quote for our services for a potential client. When a client fills out our application form, and we assess their creditworthiness. When a client’s debtor fills out our application form, and we assess their creditworthiness. When we contact a client’s debtor and inform them, they must pay Merchant Factors directly for the client’s goods or services. When a client or client’s debtor contacts us by email or telephone, we use the information we collect to reply to, investigate, and resolve their query, complaint, or request. When a client or client’s debtor is in breach of their financial obligations to Merchant Factors, we may hand over their account to our attorneys for debt collection purposes.	We process this information to meet our contractual obligations with a client.
When we contact third parties (e.g. the client’s auditors, insurance providers, trade references, etc.)to verify the client’s information in their credit application. When we contact a registered credit bureau to obtain a client’s credit profile or obtain an opinion on the lending amounts and lending terms available to a client (also known as bank codes). When we contact a registered credit bureau to obtain the credit profile of a client’s directors or members. When we contact third parties (e.g., the client’s debtor’s auditors, insurance providers, trade references etc) to verify the information supplied by the client’s debtor in their consent form. When we contact a registered credit bureau to obtain a client’s debtor’s credit profile or obtain an opinion on the lending amounts and lending terms available to a client’s debtor (also known as bank codes). When we contact a registered credit bureau to obtain a client’s debtor’s directors or members’ credit profile. When we analyse the contents of a client or client’s debtor’s credit profile obtained from a registered credit bureau to determine the client or client’s debtor’s creditworthiness. When we submit a client or client’s debtor’s information, including a payment profile, information on default and any other relevant information, to a registered credit bureau or their other creditors. When we analyse and record information about how well clients or clients’ debtors have performed financially. When a client or client’s debtor subscribes to our marketing database, a client or client’s debtor can unsubscribe at any time by contacting us via the email address provided in the newsletter.	We process this personal information with your consent.

3. In order to deliver services to you, we must share your information with others we trust

Merchant Factors provides for appropriate safeguards by means of contracts signed between these registered credit bureaus and us.

With a client or client’s debtor’s consent, we share their information with registered credit bureau in order to determine the client’s eligibility for our services. We use various registered and compliant credit bureaus.

Merchant Factors provide appropriate safeguards through the contract signed between us and all service providers we use.

We use service providers to help us:

do our taxes;
do our financial and IT audits;
manage our IT and cloud services;
with legal advice and collect debt on our behalf;
and store and destroy our files in a secure manner.

Some of our service providers may be located in other countries. These countries may not have the same levels of protection of personal information as South Africa, in which case the service provider must undertake to protect the personal information of the course participants to the same level that we do.

We provide for appropriate safeguards by means of contracts between us and our foreign service providers.

4. We have taken reasonable steps to minimise the impact of a breach

We have reasonable security safeguards in place to protect your personal information.

Our security safeguards are in place to protect your personal information from:

loss
misuse
unauthorised access
being altered
being destroyed.

We review our security safeguards regularly to ensure they are being implemented properly.

We also review our security safeguards’ adequacy regularly to ensure they are secure enough to protect all the information we store against all known risks and deficiencies.

These safeguards are reviewed regularly to ensure they are working properly and are strong enough to protect your personal information against all known risks and deficiencies.

But no system is perfect, and we cannot guarantee that your personal information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by a breach of any of our security safeguards.

We will let you know of any breaches that may affect your personal information.

If something should happen, we will take steps to minimize the threat to your privacy, and we will let you know if your personal information has been compromised.

We will also let you know how you can help minimize the impact of a breach.

5. Why, how and for how long we store your personal information

We keep records of your personal information which are essential for historical, commercial and legal purposes.

We have to keep client and clients’ debtors’ personal information for as long we are providing services to a client or receiving payments from a client’s debtors.

We also have to keep this information in order to comply with certain laws, such as the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA).

We will not keep your personal information for longer than we need to or than we are legally required to.

6. You have the right to know what we know about you, and what we do with that information

You can request access to the information we hold about you or correct your personal information by contacting paul@mfactors.co.za.

It may take us up to 21 days to respond to your request, because there are procedures we need to follow. In certain cases, we may require proof of your identity.

You have the right to:

ask what personal information we hold about you, ask when we collect and process the personal information we hold about you, and ask how we collect and process the personal information we hold about you.
request access to the personal information we hold about you.
request that we delete your personal information.
ask us to update or correct any out-of-date or incorrect personal information we hold about you.
ask what personal information of yours was sent to any other third party.
unsubscribe from any direct marketing communications we may send to you.
object to the processing of your personal information.
lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

Clients and Client’s Debtors Privacy Notice