ARF Financial LLC
PRIVACY POLICY
ARF Financial, LLC (ARF) is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of users of our products and services. We want to contribute to a safe and secure Internet environment for everyone.
The purpose of this ARF Financial website privacy policy is to inform you, as a welcome visitor to our website, what kinds of information we may gather about you when you visit our site, how we may use that information, and whether we disclose it to anyone. Please note that this policy applies only to the ARF Financial website and not to other companies or organizations websites to which we may link, if any. This policy applies to ARF’s website and its sub-websites including its merchant portal, referral partner portal and customer mobile app.
INFORMATION ABOUT ALL ARF FINANCIAL VISITORS
In general, our website automatically gathers certain usage information like the numbers and frequency of visitors to our website and its areas, very much like television ratings that tell the networks how many people tuned in to a program. We only use such data in the aggregate. This aggregate data helps us determine to what extent our visitors or customers use parts of the site, so we can improve our site to assure that it is as appealing as we can make it for as many of you as possible.
ARF Financial also collects general information on its website visitors for statistical, security, or other purposes. Such information may include:
ARF Financial uses a cookie to collect this general information on all website visitors. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record keeping purposes. We user cookies for user authentication and analytics. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual web browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still be able to access our website, but your ability to use some features or areas of our website may be limited. If you would like to learn more about cookies or how to configure your browser, please visit allaboutcookies.org. We may use this information in an aggregated, non-personally identifiable, format to assist us in offering the services and features that are of particular interest to visitors and customers. We may also use this information to monitor the security and performance of our site.
We may use standard Internet technology, such as web beacons and other similar technologies, to track your use of our site. We also may include web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or newsletters to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon. The information we obtain in this manner enables us to customize the services we offer our website visitors to deliver targeted advertisements and to measure the overall effectiveness of our online advertising, content, programming or other activities. Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or web bugs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users or to access cookies. Unlike cookies, which are stored on the user's computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on the web pages (or in email) and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Web beacons may be used to deliver or communicate with cookies, to count users who have visited certain pages and to understand usage patterns. We also may receive an anonymous identification number if you come to our site from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website.
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
You may elect to provide us with more specific or personal information, such as when you give us feedback or send us an email requesting additional information. If you provide personal information to us, it is only used internally and in furtherance of the purpose for which it was provided, however, your information may be shared with bank partners or trusted third party service providers for purposes of considering a loan or advance on your behalf.
We collect the following information about our customers: (i) contact information such as name business name, business size, email address, mailing address, industry type and phone number; (ii) financial information such as bank statements, credit card statements, average bank balances, personal and business credit history, payment behavior, bank account information, and tax id number; (iii) social security number; (iv) unique identifiers such as user name and password, and IP address;(v) government issued id’s, and (vi) beneficial ownership information. You will be asked to provide banking credentials through a secure third party software provider to assist us in collecting and maintaining banking information on our customers in connection with considering a loan or advance or monitoring your compliance with the terms of you agreements with our bank partners. We are required to collect and maintain certain information relating to beneficial ownership in order to comply with U.S. laws relating to financial crimes.
In addition to collecting customer information via our website, merchant portal and mobile app, we may also conduct a site visit to collect information, and obtain information and external data used by our lenders to process applications and to complete and manage transactions such as credit reporting agencies, site inspection agencies and other vendors. We may collect additional information from you or obtain information for additional loans, advances or transactions and to monitor compliance with your agreements with us and/or our bank partners.
We may use personal information we collect on participants in our referral partner membership program to conduct due diligence, validate and accept participants in our referral partner network program and to transact business with participants such as disbursement and payment of fees due as a referral partner participant. This information includes: (i) contact information such as name business name, email address, mailing address, industry type and phone number; (ii) background and business reputation information, (iii) bank account information, and tax id number; (iv) social security number; and (v) unique identifiers such as user name and password.
ARF Financial reserves the right to monitor and make records of transactions and interchanges made over its networks. You will not necessarily be told (unless the notification is required by law) that a transaction or interchange in which you are participating is being monitored or recorded. Monitoring and recording transactions or interchanges may be initiated, for example, if we suspect a possible breach in security or some other problem that would make it appropriate to monitor or maintain these records. We do not use this information for any improper purposes or distribute it to third parties, except as required or permitted by law.
USE AND SHARING OF INFORMATION
We use the information we collect to: (i) compile, save, use and analyze your personal information in both personally identifiable form and as part of aggregated data for analytical purposes, (ii) to operate, maintain, improve and provide to you the services we provide and to conduct our business activities, including our own credit products and referring you to third party small business lenders; (iii) to verify your identity and conduct appropriate diligence; (iv) register you as a user and identify you when you sign into your account; (v) process your loan application and determine whether or not your business qualifies for our financial products; (vi) service your loan account, or making payments to referral partners, including funding of loans and deducting of automatic payments which you have authorized; (v) communicate with you regarding your account, respond to customer service requests, send marketing communications, and sending account update notifications; (vi) post and review your comments on our blog; (vii) conduct test, research and analysis to better understand our customers and partners; and (viii) produce data analytics and reports containing de-identified summaries of personal information and other information that is not personal information that we share with business partners. This information has been aggregated and will not identify you.
We may share your personal information with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf. These services may include processing credit, providing customer service and marketing assistance, performing business and sales analysis, supporting our website functionality, and supporting other features offered through our website. These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but are not permitted to share or use such information for any other purposes. We may share your information to referral partners who have referred you to us, our bank partners, service providers and subsidiaries and affiliates to extend credit and/or to provide services to help us with our business activities, such as offering customer service, processing application and credit checks or secure data storage for new and existing products, and other similar services. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these types of services to us.
We may share your basic information (name, company name, phone number, email address and requested credit amount) with one of our business partners or as you may otherwise authorize, to market their services to you, provided, however, if you do not want us to share your personal information to these business partners, please contact us to opt out by email at portal_support@arffinancial.com or as set forth below. You may choose to stop receiving our newsletter or marketing emails, telephone solicitations or other forms of contact from ARF by following unsubscribe instructions included in these emails, accessing the email preferences in your account settings page or by contacting us by email at portal_support@arffinancial.com or as set forth below. You may correct, update, amend, delete or remove personal information from a public forum or testimonial on our website or de-active it by emailing portal_support@arffinancial.com or by regular mail at ARF Financial LLC, 1300 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway, Suite 120, Sunrise, FL 33323, Attention: Chief Marketing Officer. We will respond to your request within 30 days.
We also may disclose your information: In response to a subpoena or similar investigative demand, a court order, or a request for cooperation from a law enforcement or other government agency; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases, we may raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us. When we believe disclosure is appropriate in connection with efforts to investigate, prevent, or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing; to protect and defend the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, our employees, or others; to comply with applicable law or cooperate with law enforcement; or to enforce our website terms and conditions or other agreements or policies. In connection with a substantial corporate transaction, such as the sale of our business, a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as required by law. We will retain your information as necessary to comply with your legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
SECURITY
ARF takes the security of your information very seriously. Your information is securely sent to ARF with 128 bit-encryption over the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This creates an encrypted connection between your browser and our servers. When you enter personal information (such as social security number) on our application forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at portal_support@arffinancial.com or by regular mail at ARF Financial LLC, 1300 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway, Suite 120, Sunrise, FL 33323, Attention: Chief Technology Officer.
CHILDREN
This Site is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES
Our website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from ARF’s, including the websites of our bank partners. If you submit personal information to any of those entities, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.
BLOGS AND COMMUNITY FORUMS
Our website offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information that you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of our personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us by email at portal_support@arffinancial.com or at postal mail at the address provided below. We display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our website in addition to other endorsement. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us by email at portal_support@arffinancial.com or by postal mail at the address provided below. Our website includes social media features, such as the Facebook™ “Like” button. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on our website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our website. Your interaction with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATIONS (GDPR) COMPLIANCE
ARF Financial does not conduct business with individuals or entities outside of the United States. Using a third-party service, we examine the IP addresses of all prospective website visitors, denying access to those deemed to be originating from outside of the U.S.
CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT (CCPA) COMPLIANCE
The CCPA provides various rights to consumers who reside in California with regard to personal information.
Information We Collect. We collect the following categories of information from you, which may include the following: Identifiers such as a real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol (IP) address, email address, account name, Social Security number/tax ID number, driver’s license number, passport number or other similar identifiers is used to identify you, process your application and access your personal credit reports, if you are a guarantor or business owner. We collect the following information from referral partners or their representatives or owners: Identifiers such as a real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol (IP) address, email address, account name, Social Security number/tax ID number, driver’s license number, bank account information, passport number or other similar identifiers is used to identify the referral partner and to confirm that the referral partner qualifies to participate in our referral partner program and in order to process payments due to referral partners directly to their bank accounts.
Personal Information, defined as information that personally identifies you, such as your name, signature, social security number, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, employment history, bank account number or other financial information is used to identify you, process your application and access your personal credit reports, if you are a guarantor or business owner.
Protected classification characteristics under California or Federal Law such as age (date of birth) is used to confirm your identity and that you are old enough to enter into a contract for one of our business loans.
Commercial information, including records of personal property and personal credit information, is used when processing your business loan application.
Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history (ARF pages visited), device ID, device type and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with arffinancial.com (ARF’s Internet “website”), application or advertisements is used to analyze the use of our website and for fraud screening.
Geolocation Data is collected for fraud prevention purposes.
Audio, or similar information Interactions with ARF sales staff, underwriters and customer service agents may be recorded for monitoring and training purposes, to verify your identity and to confirm that you understand and have accepted the terms of the business loan offered.
Professional or employment-related information is used in underwriting for our business loan products. We may draw inferences from the above information which may be used for credit and fraud analysis and for promotion of business loan product offers.
Personal information does not include: Publicly available information from government records, De-identified or aggregated information. The CCPA does not cover Health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA).Personal information covered by certain privacy laws such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA) and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
How Do We Collect Information: We collect information directly from our applicants, clients, or their agents as part of the business loan application process. We collect information directly through our website portal or website usage details collected automatically. We also collect information from third parties that interact with us in connection with the services we perform such as referral partners who provide us with applications, bank account and credit information regarding a guarantor’s or business owner’s credit history. We collect information on Referral Partners from the information requested in the referral partner agreements and from web searches and background checks of publicly available information.
How Do We Use the Information We Collect: We compile, save, use and analyze your Personal Information in both a personally identifiable form and as part of aggregated data to: (i) Operate, maintain, improve, and provide you with business loan products, (ii) review for potentially fraudulent activity (iii) register you as a user and identify you when you sign in to your business loan account, (iv) process your business’ loan application and determine whether or not your business qualifies for a business loan under our lending programs, (v) to service your business loan account, including deducting automatic payments from your business bank account, (vi) to communicate with you regarding your account, respond to customer service requests, send marketing communications, and send account update notifications related to your business loan status, (vii) post and review your comments on our blog, (viii) to conduct tests, research and analyses to better understand our customers, (ix) to conduct our business of providing business loans to you through our trusted bank partners, (x) to verify your identity and to comply with applicable laws relating to customer identity for banking and business loan purposes, (xii) to validate that referral partners’ qualify for participation in our referral partner program and for purposes of making payments of fees due to referral partners, and (xiii) for data analytics and reports containing de-identified summaries of Personal Information and other information that is not Personal Information (such information, “General Information”) that we share with business partners. General Information may include Personal Information that has been aggregated and will not identify you.
Sharing of Personal Information:
ARF acts as a marketing and servicing agent for state chartered banks which approve and fund the business loans applied for by our customers. ARF then services the business loans funded by its bank partners. Should you apply to ARF for a business loan, ARF may access or share your application status, borrowing history, and credit performance to facilitate our bank partners’ underwriting and application decisioning processes. ARF will share your Personal Information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy and as required by law. Neither ARF nor our bank partners will sell your Personal Information to third parties without your express consent. We will provide your Personal Information, which may include application information, to our bank partners including any referral partner who referred you to us, service providers to extend credit and/or to provide services to help us with our business activities, such as offering customer service, processing application and credit checks or secure data storage, and other similar services. These companies are authorized to use your Personal Information only as necessary to provide these types of services to us. In addition, we may share your basic information (name, company name, phone number, email address) with one of our business partners to market their services to you, provided, however, if you do not want us to share your Personal Information in these circumstances with these business partners you can opt out at the email or mailing address provided in ARF’s Privacy Policy as provided above which precedes this CCPA policy. In addition, we may also share General Information for the same reasons as we provide Personal Information to business partners and others to conduct analyses and research and track marketing performance or as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy relating to use of cookies and internet tracking technologies as set forth above.
We may also disclose your Personal Information: (i) as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, or similar legal process, including in a bankruptcy proceeding, (ii) to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a request from a governmental entity, (iii) if ARF is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or substantially all of its assets or equity, in which case, you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our Website of any change in ownership or uses of your Personal Information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your Personal Information; and to any other third party, not already expressly described above, with your prior consent. In the preceding 12 months, we may have disclosed Personal Information for a business purpose from each of the categories listed previously where we collect information.
We may use personal information we collect on participants in our referral partner membership program to conduct due diligence, perform background checks, validate and accept participants in our referral partner network program and to transact business with participants such as disbursement and payment of fees due as a referral partner participant. This information includes: (i) contact information such as name business name, email address, mailing address, industry type and phone number; (ii) background and business reputation information, (iii) bank account information, and tax id number; (iv) social security number; (v) governmental id’s, and (vi) unique identifiers such as user name and password.
Sale of Information:
ARF does not sell your personal information.
Your Rights under the CCPA:
The CCPA provides consumers, including owners/guarantors of our business loan products who are California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. ARF is providing these rights to California consumer residents who have provided their personal information as part of an ARF business loan application. ARF also provides these rights to its referral partners which have provided personal information under the CCPA. This section describes the CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.
Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights:
You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (“Request”), we will disclose to you: (i) The categories of information we collected about you, (ii) The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you, (iii) Our business or commercial purpose for collecting that personal information, (iv) The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information, (v) The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you, and (vi) If we disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, a list identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.
Deletion Request Rights:
You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
Exceptions:
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to: (i) Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you, (ii) For completed transactions, in accordance with our data retention policies including the policies required by our bank partners pursuant to banking rules, regulations and applicable laws and for audit purposes, (iii) Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities, (iv) Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality, (v) Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided by law, (vi) Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal.Penal Code Section 1546 seq.), (vii) Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the deletion of the information may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent, (viii) Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with expectations based on your relationship with us, (ix) Comply with a legal obligation, such as retaining personal information collected to verify/identify under federal anti-money laundering laws (“AML”), and (x) Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
Exercising Access, Data Portability and Deletion Rights:
To exercise the access, data portability and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable request to us by one of these methods:
Telephone: (888)509-2310
-or-
E-mail: privacy@arffinancial.com
Only you or a person registered with the California Secretary of State or other state agency that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a Request related to your personal information. You may only make a Request for access or data portability twice within a 12- month period. The Request must: (i) Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative, (ii) Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate and respond to it. We can’t respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we are unable to verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information related to you. Making a Request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a Request to verify your identity or authority to make the request.
Response Timing and Format
We endeavor to respond to a Request in writing within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason an extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by email. Any disclosures we provide will cover the 12-month period preceding the receipt of the Request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we can’t comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide the information that is readily usable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without delay.
We do not charge a fee to process or response to your Request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.
Non-Discrimination
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not, because you have exercised rights under the CCPA: (i) deny you goods or services, (ii) charge you different prices for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties, (iii) provide you a different level or quality of goods or services, or (iv) suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
Changes in Privacy Notice
We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will notify you of the change as required by law.
NO RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES
This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties. Notification of claimed copyright infringement is: Robert Whited, telephone: (888)366-3335 email: rwhited@arffinancial.com.
CONTACTING US
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy in general or the practices of ARF, please contact us by e-mail at portal_support@arffinancial.com or by regular mail at ARF Financial LLC, 1300 Sawgrass Corporate Parkway, Suite 120, Sunrise, FL 33323, Attention: Chief Technology Officer.