Privacy Policy

Secure Business Finance Ltd (“SBF”, “we”, “us”) is a commercial finance broker registered in England & Wales under company number 13340623, with its registered office at 9 St Georges, Farnham, GU9 7LW.

For the purposes of UK data protection law we are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number ZB492287.

Questions about this policy, or about how we handle your data, should go to [email protected] or 0330 0438 011.

We collect only what we need to find you finance. In practice that means:

We do not ask for special category data (such as health or biometric data). We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed those interests against your rights and freedoms. You can object at any time, see Your rights.

Automated decision-making

We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone. Individual lenders may use automated credit scoring as part of their own decision process; where they do, their privacy notice explains it and you have the right to request human review from them.

We are a broker, so sharing your information with lenders is the service. We share your data with:

• Lenders and funders on our panel, but only those we have identified as genuinely suitable, and only to the extent needed to obtain terms. Each becomes an independent data controller once we introduce you.
• Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies, where a lender requires a search. We will always tell you before a hard search is carried out.
• Service providers who help us operate, email, CRM, document storage and website hosting, under written contracts that restrict them to our instructions.
• Professional advisers and regulators, where we are required or permitted by law to do so.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not pass it to third parties for their own marketing.

Commission

We are a credit broker, not a lender. We may receive a commission from a lender when an introduction results in a completed facility. This does not change the price you pay, and we will disclose the nature and, on request, the amount of any commission before you commit.

We keep your data within the UK and European Economic Area wherever we can. Where a provider we rely on processes data outside that area, we make sure the transfer is covered by UK adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with any additional safeguards the transfer requires.

• Enquiries that don’t proceed: 24 months from your last contact with us, so we can pick up the conversation if you come back.
• Completed facilities: 6 years from the end of our relationship, to meet our record-keeping obligations and the limitation period for claims.
• Anti-money-laundering records: 5 years from the end of the business relationship, as required by law.
• Newsletter subscribers: until you unsubscribe, plus a suppression record so we don’t re-add you by mistake.

We delete or anonymise data once the applicable period has run.

Data sent through this website is encrypted in transit using TLS. Access to enquiry and client records is restricted to staff who need it, protected by individual accounts and multi-factor authentication. We hold professional indemnity insurance and review our security arrangements and suppliers regularly. No system is perfect, if a breach occurs that is likely to risk your rights and freedoms, we will notify the ICO within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay.

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Have inaccurate data corrected
• Ask us to delete data where we no longer have a good reason to keep it
• Ask us to restrict how we use your data while a concern is resolved
• Object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests
• Receive data you gave us in a portable, machine-readable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is what we rely on

Email [email protected] to exercise any of these. We will respond within one month, and there is no charge for a reasonable request.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/concerns or on 0303 123 1113.

We review this policy at least annually and whenever our processing changes materially. The current version always sits on this page with its last-updated date at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will tell you directly.