Privacy Notice

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Privacy Notice

This privacy notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect information about you when you engage us for financial planning/financial advice/investment advice services. This information will relate to your personal and financial circumstances. It may also include special categories of personal data such as data about your health if this is necessary for the provision of our services.

We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete client surveys or provide feedback to us.

Information relating to the usage of our website is collected using cookies. These are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. We’ll use your information collected from the website to personalise your repeat visits to the site.

Information about connected individuals

We may need to gather personal information about your close family members and dependants in order to provide our service to you effectively. In such cases it will be your responsibility to ensure that you have the consent of the people concerned to pass their information on to us. We’ll provide a copy of this privacy notice for them or, where appropriate, ask you to pass the privacy information to them.

Why do we need to collect and use your personal data?

We must have a lawful basis to process your personal data. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

We have a contractual obligation

This is the primary legal basis that we intend to use for processing your data. The personal information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to effectively carry out the services that we have agreed to deliver to you.

We have a legal obligation

Sometimes, collecting personal data is needed to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. For example, UK anti money laundering legislation may require us to collect personal information to verify your identity.

We will obtain your consent

Special category data, such as that relating to health matters, is often required to provide our services. When this is required, we will obtain your explicit consent to collect and process this information.

From time to time, we may wish to contact you to offer additional products or services which may be of interest to you. To do this, we will obtain your consent.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by notifying us at our main business address.

How will we use the information about you?

We collect information about you in order to provide you with the services for which you engage us.

Who might we share your information with?

If you agree, we may email you about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you.

We won’t share your information for marketing purposes with other companies.

In order to deliver our services to you effectively we may send your details to third parties such as those that we engage for professional compliance, accountancy or legal services as well as product and platform providers that we use to arrange financial products for you.

Where third parties are involved in processing your data we’ll have a contract in place with them to ensure that the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data and that they’ll only act in accordance with our written instructions.

Where it’s necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party we’ll use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in transit. We use password protection and the encryption of data when transferring your data via email. We also use Special delivery Post.

To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money-laundering and other financial crime we may send your details to third party agencies for identity verification purposes.

How long do we keep hold of your information?

During the course of our relationship with you we’ll retain personal data which is necessary to provide services to you. We’ll take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data up to date throughout our relationship.

We’re also subject to regulatory requirements to retain your data for specified minimum periods. These are, generally:

Five years for investment business
Three years for mortgage business
Indefinitely for pension transfers and opt-out business
Three years for insurance business

These are minimum periods, during which we have a legal obligation to retain your records.

We reserve the right to retain data for longer where we believe it's in our legitimate interests to do so.

We will retain data on prospective clients for an 18 month period. A prospective client is a person whom we anticipate to become our client in the near future but are not a client right now.

You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We’ll comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above.

How can I access the information you hold about me?

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you’d like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact details noted below.

When your personal data is processed by automated means you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.

We have an obligation to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is incorrect.

Marketing

We’d like to send you information about our products and services which may be of interest to you. If you’ve agreed to receive marketing information, you may opt out at a later date.

You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes. If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please contact us by email or post.

We may use cookies to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.

For further information visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/

You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above website tells you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

Other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

What can you do if you are unhappy with how your personal data is processed?

You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority for data protection. In the UK this is:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

0303 123 1113 (local rate) Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review, and we’ll place any updates on this web page (and/or) inform you of any changes when they occur. This privacy policy was last updated on 01/10/2024.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you by email at [email protected] or write to us at Vertis Private Wealth Management Limited, Campion House, Green Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire DY10 1JL.