Legal

DATA PRIVACY POLICY 1. Introduction. Verychalaant is an online platform committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data as guaranteed by the Kenyan Data Protection Act (No. 24 of 2019). 2. Regulation of data privacy and protection As our client, your primary data controller will be Verychalaant Limited. We comply with the applicable data protection and privacy laws of the Republic of Kenya and international best practices where applicable. 3. Purpose and scope of this statement The purpose of this statement is to inform you about how we collect, use, store, make available, disclose, update, safeguard, destroy or otherwise deal with (process) your personal information and to explain your rights relating to the privacy of your personal information and how the law protects you. Protecting the privacy, confidentiality and security of your personal information is very important to us as it is critical for us to maintain your trust and act in the right way to meet your needs. We have therefore implemented policies and procedures to ensure that your personal information is protected and shall ensure we have a contract in place with any third parties involved in processing your data outside Kenya. 4. Personal information and types of personal information we collect Personal information is any information from which you can be identified. The personal information we may collect about you includes: 4.1 Name, age, gender, sex and identifying numbers; 4.2 Physical and email addresses and contact numbers; 4.3 Online identifiers and your online behaviour such as cookies and IP addresses; 4.4 Engagements with us including use of products or services, transactions, requests, queries, applications and complaints; 4.5 Marketing Data that is your preferences in receiving marketing communications from us. 4.6 Payment Data that is, billing address and limited payment card details (handled securely via third-party payment providers). 5. Collection of your personal data 5.1 We will collect personal information directly from you or by telephone or through online channels such as our website, mobile applications, internet banking or electronic messaging platforms. 5.2 We also collect personal information about you from other sources where lawful and reasonable, such as reputable third parties (where you have consented for your personal information to be shared for either the express purpose or for any further processing) that you deal with or that company interacts with for the purposes of conducting its business. These third parties include: 5.2.1 Business partners (including partners and participating partners involved in reward programmes, campaigns or other business activity, joint-venture partners, social media platform partners) or companies that we may acquire or that merge with us. 5.2.2 Service providers (including payment processors, card network providers, debt collection and tracing agencies, credit agencies and bureaux, electronic communication service providers, public and private data and data verification providers including data registries, aggregators, search engines, social media, and marketing list providers). 5.2.3 Government departments, regulatory authorities, courts of law and law enforcement agencies and tax authorities. 5.3 If you are a third-party service provider, we may collect personal information about you as a data subject to ensure that the business relationship and matters relating to the agreement between you and us can be fulfilled. You warrant that, if you provide us with any personal information about other persons, such as employees, shareholders, or your directors, you are authorised to share their personal information with us for purposes set out in this statement. 5.4 Providing your personal information to us is voluntary. However, it is mandatory under certain circumstances in which, if you fail to provide us with your personal information when requested, we may not be able to provide the products or services to you or comply with our legal obligations. 6. Processing your personal information Our responsibilities to you are very important to us and we aim to provide you with personalised services to meet your needs. We may process your personal information for any of the reasons outlined in this section: 5.1 Contract requirements We may need to process your personal information if we require it to conclude or perform under a contract or agreement with you for a product or service that you have applied for either with us or through our business partners with whom we have entered a partnership, collaboration, or alliance arrangement or for purposes of: 6.1.1 Providing products and services to you, executing transactions, collecting payments due to us by you, managing our risks and maintaining our overall relationship with you; 6.1.2 Communicating with you regarding the products or services you have with us; or 6.1.3 Providing you with further information that you request from us regarding the products or services you have with us. 6.2 Lawful obligations 6.2.1 To complete integrity and business conduct checks required for compliance purposes including due diligence and onboarding processes, monitoring and assurance reviews and conduct sanctions screening against any sanction's lists. 6.2.2 To comply with other risk management, regulatory and legislative requirements. 6.2.3 To comply with voluntary and mandatory codes of conduct. 6.2.4 To detect, prevent and report theft, money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption or other potentially illegal activity, or activity that could lead to loss. 6.2.5 To process and settle transactions and payments. 6.2.6 To conduct research and analysis (which may include assessing product suitability, credit quality, insurance risks, market risks and affordability, developing credit models and tools and obtaining related information). 6.3 Legitimate Interest We may process your personal information in the regular management of its business and to protect the interests of Kenya and its clients, depositors, shareholders, employees and other third parties, including our business partners and members of the public. This may be done to: 6.3.1 Maintain, monitor, improve and develop our business policies, systems and controls; 6.3.2 Maintain and improve data quality; 6.3.3 Design, develop and test products, services and solutions for clients, which may include combining sources and types of your personal information across multiple legal entities and countries, subject to compliance with applicable laws; 6.3.4 Personalise and customise products, services and solutions, messaging and advertising; 6.3.5 Respond to client enquiries and communications and to record these interactions for the purpose of analysis and improvement; 6.3.6 Manage business emergencies and stress events; 6.3.7 Process and settle transactions and payments; 6.3.8 Meet record-keeping obligations; 6.3.9 Conduct research and analysis (among other things, to assess product suitability, credit quality, insurance risks, market risks and affordability, to conduct behavioural profiling, to develop credit models and tools and to obtain related information); 6.3.10 Enable clients to use value-added solutions and participate in reward programmes; 6.3.11 Achieve other related purposes. 7. Consent In addition to the reasons given above, we may process your personal information where we have your specific consent for a defined purpose. We will also seek your consent where applicable laws require it. We will store your personal information according to our defined retention schedules as provided by the law and thereafter delete it. 8. Length of retention of your personal information We retain your personal information in line with our legal and regulatory obligations and for our business and operational purposes as highlighted above. This will generally be for at least five (5) years from your last transaction with us. 9. Communication with you Besides in-person communication, we use a wide array of channels to engage with you regarding our products and services and to keep you updated. These include SMSs, email, phone calls, notifications sent to your mobile device and in-app notifications. We need to keep you up to date on an ongoing operational basis .We may contact you through these means for research purposes or to communicate with you for marketing of new products or services as explained in greater detail below. 10. Using your personal information for marketing 10.1 If you are an existing client with whom we have had previous interactions in respect of your financial well-being or needs, you are important to us and therefore we would like to share information about our products, services, and special offers with you (subject to applicable local laws). 10.2 If you are a prospective client, and we have had no previous interaction or have no relationship with you, we will seek your express consent in compliance with local laws to market to you electronically. 10.3 If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, you may opt out at any time as per the instructions contained in any marketing communication you receive. You can also opt out by contacting us through any of the following: 10.3.1 Phone calls 10.3.2 Emails 10.3.3 Phone messaging 11. Protection of your personal information The security of your personal information is important to us, and we take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe and to prevent loss, destruction of and damage or unlawful access to your personal information by unauthorised parties. We require the same level of security to be implemented by our service providers and other third parties. However, you must not share or send us any personal information through unauthorised channels, as these are not a secure way of communication and carry a risk of interception and unauthorised access. You should only share personal information through our authorised channels. 12. Your rights We value your trust and want you to be familiar with your rights under the legislation and to know how you can exercise them in your interactions with us.You have the right to: 12.1 Access the personal information we hold about you and to correct and update your information; 12.2 Object to our processing your personal information, where applicable; request that we delete your personal information where appropriate; 12.3 Be notified that your personal information is being collected by us or has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person; 12.4 Object to the processing of personal information for the purposes of direct marketing; not be subject to automated decision-making processes in respect of an application for products and/or services, except under certain circumstances; and 12.5 To request reasons or make a representation to us if your application for products and/or services is refused. You may exercise your rights by making requests to us and we shall respond within the following timelines; Restriction request – within fourteen (14) days Objection request – within fourteen (14) days Data Access request – within seven (7) days Rectification request – within seven (7) days Data Portability request – within seven (7) days Erasure request – within seven (7) days 13. General We may change this statement from time to time in accordance with changes in our products or services or regulatory requirements. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you through suitable communication channels.