Overview

Forward Lending, Inc. DBA Method Financial (collectively referred to herein as “Method”, “we”, “our”, or “us) recognizes the importance of protecting personal data we may collect from visitors and any other individual or entity (“Users”, “you”, or “your”) who visit our web sites or use our services. This Privacy Policy applies to data collection by Method and shall apply to your use of the websites, www.methodfi.com, and other Method-related sites, applications, software, communications, capabilities and services (“Services”) accessible on or by any top-level Method domain owned by us (each, a “Site” and collectively the “Sites”), but excluding services that state that they are offered under a different privacy policy.

Our Privacy Policy explains: (1) what information we collect; (2) why we collect it; (3) how we use that information; (4) how we may share it; and (5) the choices we offer, including how to access and delete information. Specifically, our Privacy Policy covers the following topics:

1. When This Privacy Policy Applies
2. Website User Terms
3. Information We Collect
4. Cookies and Similar Technologies
5. How We Use Information We Collect
6. Your Failure to Provide Personal Information
7. Our Retention of Your Personal Information
8. Sharing Personal Information
9. Transfer of Data
10. Your Rights and Choices
11. Third Party Links
12. How We Protect Personal Information
13. Children’s Privacy
14. Direct Marketing and “Do Not Track” Signals
15. Customer Information
16. Changes to this Privacy Policy
17. How to Contact Us

Please familiarize yourself with our privacy practices and let us know if you have any questions. By using the Sites, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Sites.

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please submit a request to privacy@methodfi.com.

When this Privacy Policy Applies

Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the Services offered by Method and its affiliates, including some Method partners, and Services offered on other sites, but excludes services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites that may be displayed to you, or other sites linked from our Services. Our Privacy Policy does not cover the information practices of other companies and organizations who advertise our Services, and who may use cookies, pixel tags and other technologies to serve and offer relevant ads.

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Website User Terms

By accessing or using the Sites in any manner, you also agree to be bound by Method’s Website’s User Terms (the “Agreement”). Please read the Agreement carefully. If you do not accept all of the terms and conditions contained in or incorporated by reference into the Agreement, please do not use the Sites.

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Information We Collect

We collect information, including Personal Information, to provide better services to all our Users. We use the term “Personal Information” to refer to any information that identifies or can be used to identify you. Common examples of Personal Information include: full name, contact information, date of birth, information about your device, and certain metadata.

“Sensitive Personal Information” refers to a smaller subset of Personal Information which is considered more sensitive to the individual, such as race and ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, genetic or biometric information, physical or mental health information, medical insurance data, or sexual orientation. 

The Personal Information which we collect includes, but is not limited to, the following circumstances and data elements:

• When you authorize us to store information about you in connection with our Services we collect your name and contact information and information about your stored payment methods (e.g. bank account number, routing number, payment card number, CVC code and expiration date);
• If you are a User, you will provide your contact details, such as name, postal address, telephone number, and email address. As part of your business relationship with us, we may also collect financial and Personal Information about you, such as your date of birth and government identifiers associated with you and your organization (such as your social security number, tax number, or Employer Identification Number). You may also choose to provide bank account information;
• If you are transacting with a User, depending on how they integrated our Services, we may receive this information directly from you, from the User or third parties. The information that we collect will include payment method information (such as credit or debit card number, or bank account information);
• In connection with fraud monitoring, prevention, detection, and compliance activities for Method and its Users, we receive identity related from the following sources:

• From customers (including through their devices (e.g. IP Addresses)) related to customers,
• From Users about themselves and their customers, including as collected through our Services and
• From our business partners, financial service providers, identity verification services, and publicly available sources;

• If you express an interest in obtaining additional information about our services, request customer support, use our “Contact Us” or similar features, register to use our Sites or Services, or download certain content, we may require that you provide to us your contact information, such as your name, phone number, or email address;
• If you use and interact with our websites or emails, we automatically collect information about your device and your usage of our websites or emails through cookies, web beacons or similar technologies, such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or other identifiers, which may qualify as Personal Information;
• If you use and interact with our services, we automatically collect information about your device and your usage of our services, through log files and other technologies, some of which may qualify as Personal Information;
• If you voluntarily submit certain information to our services, such as filling out a survey about your user experience, we collect the information you have provided as part of that request; and
• If you provide us or our service providers with any Personal Information relating to other individuals, you represent that you have the authority to do so and acknowledge that it will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you believe that your Personal Information has been provided to us improperly, or to otherwise exercise your rights relating to your Personal Information, please contact us by using the information set out in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

When you enter our recruitment process, we may additionally collect the following Personal Data: 

• Resume Data, comprised of information submitted by you on your resume, cover letter, or other application materials; 
• Government Data, including background checks and other information to allow us to establish your right to work; 
• Social Data. If you connect to us from a social network, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, we will collect Personal Data from the social network in accordance with your privacy settings on that social network. The connected social network may provide us with information such as your name, profile picture, network, gender, username, user ID, age or age range, language, country, friends list, follower list, and any other information you have agreed it can share or that the social network provides to us; and ‍
• Data from Third Parties, including, without limitation, information from your references to whom you direct us or from third parties who recommend or suggest that we contact you. 

We also collect, use and share “Aggregated Data” such as statistical data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your Personal Data, but once in aggregated form it will not constitute considered Personal Data for the purposes of the GDPR as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit one of our services, and this may include using cookies or similar technologies to identify your browser or device. We also use these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with services from our partners, such as advertising services. Our third party advertising and analytics partners include Google, Clearbit, LinkedIn and similar partners. 

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include: 

• Cookies: A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our services. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our services.  
• Web Beacons: Pages of our services or our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count Users who have visited those pages or opened an e-mail and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). 
• Clickstream Data: Clickstream data is information collected by our computers when you request Web pages from the Sites. Clickstream data may include information such as the page served, the time spent viewing the page, source of the request, type of browser making the request, the preceding page viewed and similar information. Clickstream data permits us to analyze how visitors arrive at the Sites, what type of content is popular, what type of visitors in the aggregate are interested in particular kinds of content on the Sites.

How We Use Information We Collect

We use your Personal Information in ways that are compatible with the purposes for which it was collected or authorized by you, including for the following purposes:

1. To present, operate or improve the Site and Services, including analysis of Site activity;
2. To management your account(s);
3. Accounting, auditing, and billing activities; 
4. Processing of payments, including fraud detection and prevention, optimizing valid transactions, communications regarding such payments, and related customer service;
5. To verify the identity of our Users in order to comply with fraud monitoring, prevention and detection obligations, laws associated with the identification and reporting of illegal and illicit activity, such as AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know-Your-Customer) obligations, and financial reporting obligations. For example, we may be required to record and verify a User’s identity for the purpose of compliance with legislation intended to prevent money laundering and financial crimes. These obligations are imposed on us by the operation of law, industry standards, and by our financial partners, and may require us to report our compliance to third parties, and to submit to third party verification audits;
6. To inform you about Services and products available from Method; 
7. To authorize access to our Sites and Services;
8. To provide, maintain, administer or expand the Services, performing business analyses, or for other internal purposes to support, improve or enhance our business, the Services, and other products and services we offer;
9. To offer and administer programs; 
10. To customize or tailor your experience of the Services;
11. To administer content, or other Site features; 
12. To communicate about, and administer your participation in, special programs, surveys, contests, online campaigns, online programs, and other offers or promotions, and to deliver pertinent emails;
13. To improve our Site and Services;
14. To secure our Services, including to authenticate Users;
15. To use statistical information that we collect in any way permitted by law, including from third parties in connection with their commercial and marketing efforts;
16. To respond to and support Users regarding their use of the Sites and Services;
17. To comply with all applicable legal requirements;
18. To enforce our User Terms and other agreements;
19. To perform data analysis and testing;
20. To investigate possible fraud or other violations of our User Terms or this Privacy Policy and/or attempts to harm our Users;
21. To resolve disputes;
22. To improve products and services;
23. To otherwise fulfill the purpose for which the information was provided.
24. For our recruitment.

We use the information we collect from our Sites to provide, maintain, and improve them, to develop new services, and to protect our company and our Users. Where allowed under applicable law, we rely on our legitimate business interests to process Personal Information about you. When we do so, we balance our legitimate interests against the interests and rights of the individuals whose Personal Information we process. The following list sets out the business purposes that we have identified as legitimate:

• Detect, monitor and prevent fraud and unauthorized payment transactions;
• Mitigate financial loss, claims, liabilities or other harm to customers, Users and Method;
• Promote, analyze, modify and improve our Services, systems, and tools, and develop new products and services, including reliability of the Services;
• Manage, operate and improve the performance of our Sites and Services by understanding their effectiveness and optimizing our digital assets;
• Conduct aggregate analysis and develop business intelligence that enable us to operate, protect, make informed decisions, and report on the performance of, our business;
• Share Personal Information with third party service providers that provide services on our behalf and business partners which help us operate and improve our business;
• Enable network and information security throughout Method and our Services; and
• Share Personal Information among our affiliates for administrative purposes.

We use Personal Information of customers to provide our Services to Users, including to process online payment transactions and authenticate customers on behalf of our Users. Such use may be pursuant to the terms of our business relationships with our Users or pursuant to a direct relationship with the customer. In addition, we may offer payment-related services to Users who have requested such services, and our delivery of such related services to our Users may involve the use of Personal Information. For example, a User may specify parameters for transactions submitted by its customers that determine whether the transactions are blocked or allowed by our services. In such cases, the User is responsible for the collection and use of customer’s Personal Information for the payment transactions and payment-related services. We also use Personal Information to detect and prevent fraud. In providing such services, we may provide Users who have requested such services Personal Information from a customer to assess the fraud risk associated with an attempted transaction by their customer.

We use information collected from cookies and other technologies, to improve your User experience and the overall quality of our services. We may use your Personal Information to see which web pages you visit at our Site, which website you visited before coming to our Site, and where you go after you leave our Site. We can then develop statistics that help us understand how our visitors use our Site and how to improve it.  We may also use the information we obtain about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection.

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those set out in this Privacy Policy.

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Your Failure to Provide Personal Information

Your provision of Personal Information is required in order to use certain parts of our services and our programs.  If you fail to provide such Personal Information, you may not be able to access and use our Services and/or our programs, or parts of our Services and/or our programs.  

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Our Retention of Your Personal Information

We use and retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it is being processed, to carry out legitimate business interests, as well as on the basis of applicable legal requirements (such as applicable statutes of limitation).

Sharing Personal Information

Method may disclose your Personal Information to commercial providers for a business purpose. When we disclose Personal Information for these reasons, we enter into a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that Personal Information confidential and not use it for any purpose except for the purposes set forth in the contract. We share Personal Information with certain of our service providers subject to contract terms that limit their use of Personal Data. We have service providers that provide services on our behalf, such as identity verification services, website hosting, data analysis, marketing service, information technology and related infrastructure, customer service, email delivery, and auditing services. These service providers may need to access Personal Information to perform their services. We authorize such service providers to use or disclose the Personal Information only to perform services on our behalf or comply with legal requirements. We require such service providers to contractually commit to protect the security and confidentiality of Personal Information they process on our behalf.

We share Personal Information with third party business partners in connection with our Services to our Users. Examples of third parties to whom we may disclose Personal Information for this purpose are banks and payment method providers (such as credit card networks) when we provide payment processing services, and the professional services firms that we partner with to deliver the Services.

We share Personal Information with Users to maintain a User account and provide the Services and third party services. We share data with parties directly authorized by a User to receive Personal Information. This includes sharing Personal Information of customers with Users to assess the fraud risk associated with attempted transactions by customers, or when a User authorizes a third party application provider to access the User’s Method account using the Services. The use of Personal Information by an authorized third party is subject to the third party’s privacy policy.

We may disclose your Personal Information for legal reasons. Specifically, we will share Personal Information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Method if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

• meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
• enforce applicable website User Terms or other agreement, including investigation of potential violations.
• detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
• protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Method, our Users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We attempt to notify consumers about legal demands for their personal data when appropriate in our judgment, unless prohibited by law or court order or when the request is an emergency. We may dispute such demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague or lack proper authority, but we do not promise to challenge every demand.

We may disclose your Personal Information in the event of a business transfer. If we establish a new related entity, are acquired by or merged with another organization, or if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another organization, Personal Information about our users is often a transferred business asset. In the event that Method itself or substantially all of our assets are acquired, Personal Information about our users may be one of the transferred assets.

Transfer of Data

We are committed to complying with applicable laws, regulations and mandatory government standards regarding the protection of Personal Information.

We may, directly or indirectly through third-party entities around the world, process, store and transfer the information Users provide, including Personal Information, as described in this Privacy Policy. Specifically, the information and Personal Information that we collect may be transferred to and maintained on computers and/or servers located outside of a User’s state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from their jurisdiction. Countries where we process data may have laws which are different, and potentially not as protective, as the laws of your own country.

If we transfer your Personal Information out of your jurisdiction, we will implement suitable safeguards and rely on legally-provided mechanisms to lawfully transfer data across borders to ensure that your Personal Information is protected.

Your Rights and Choices

You may have certain rights relating to your Personal Information, subject to local data protection law. Whenever you use our services, we aim to provide you with choices about how we use your personal data. We also aim to provide you with access to your Personal Information. If that information is wrong, we strive to give you ways to update it quickly or to delete it – unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes. Subject to applicable law, you may obtain a copy of Personal Information we maintain about you or you may update or correct inaccuracies in that information by contacting us. To help protect your privacy and maintain security, we will take steps to verify your identity before granting you access to the information. In addition, if you believe that Personal Information we maintain about you is inaccurate, subject to applicable law, you may have the right to request that we correct or amend the information by contacting us as indicated in the How to Contact Us section below.

• Our Opt-in/Opt-out Policy

By providing an email address on the Method Sites or Services, you agree that we may contact you in the event of a change in this Privacy Policy, to provide you with any Service related notices, or to provide you with information about our events, invitations, or related educational information.

For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “opt-in” is generally defined as any affirmative action by a User to submit or receive information, as the case may be.

We currently provide the following opt-out opportunities: 

1. At any time, you can follow a link provided in offers, newsletters or other email messages (except for e-commerce confirmation or service notice emails) received from us or a Method Partner to unsubscribe from the service.     

Notwithstanding anything else in this Privacy Policy, please note that we always reserve the right to contact you in the event of a change in this Privacy Policy, or to provide you with any service related notices.

How We Protect Personal Information

Method maintains administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect the user's Personal Information and other information against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use. For example, we use commercially reasonable security measures such as encryption, firewalls, and Secure Socket Layer software (SSL) or hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) to protect Personal Information.   

Method collects account information for payment or credit, and Method will use the information only to complete the task for which the account information was offered.

For your own privacy protection, we urge you to keep all passwords confidential. We also recommend that you do not include sensitive information such as passwords, social security numbers or payment information, in any emails that you send to us. If you become aware of any breach of the terms of this Privacy Policy or of the security of the Services, please notify us by email at privacy@methodfi.com.

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Children’s Privacy

We recognize the need to provide further privacy protections with respect to Personal Information we may collect from children on our sites and through our services. Our Services are not designed or intended to be used by anyone under the age of 18 ("Children"). If a User is under the age of 18 (or a minor in the jurisdiction in which they are accessing the Services), they should not use the Services or submit any Personal Information via the Services. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us at privacy@methodfi.com. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Information from Children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Direct Marketing and “Do Not Track” Signals

Method does not track its users over time and across third party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third party sites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you. If you are visiting such sites, your browser may include controls to block and delete cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, to allow you to opt out of data collection through those technologies.

California residents are entitled to contact us to request information about whether we have disclosed Personal Information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Under the California “Shine the Light” law, California residents may opt-out of our disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. You may choose to opt-out of the sharing of your Personal Information with third parties for marketing purposes at any time by submitting a request to privacy@methodfi.com. California users may request further information about our compliance with this law by contacting us at privacy@methodfi.com or by writing to us at the address listed in the “How to Contact Us” section.

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Method Customer Information

Some Method Customers engage us to deliver Services to their employees, customers and other users. Customer Information, Information about our Customer’s Contacts and Archival Information (each defined below) are governed by this Privacy Policy and any services agreements between Method and the applicable Customer. 

• Method Customer Information. We collect information about individuals within our Method Customer organization (“Customer Information”). Customer Information may include information related to the Customer’s account, name, work e-mail address, work phone number, job title or similar kinds of information. We use Customer Information to support the Customer account, maintain our business relationship with the Customer, respond to Customer inquiries, or perform accounting functions. Method Customers may update Personal Information and password by logging into the Method Platform and updating their account. Method Customers may contact Method support in order to delete their Personal Information. In some cases, we may not be able to delete Customer Information, and in such cases we will tell you why.
  

• Information about our Customers’ Contacts. We collect information about any contacts, such as employees, customers, and others, that may be uploaded into the Method Platform (“Information about our Customers’ Contacts”). Information about our Customer’s Contacts may include name, e-mail address, phone number, job title, or similar kinds of information. We use Information about our Customer’s Contacts for the purposes of providing Services to such contacts. Method Customers may update or delete Information about their contacts in the Method Platform. Method Customers may also contact Method support in order to update and delete such information. In some cases, we may not be able to delete such information, and in such cases we will tell you why.
  

• Archival Information. We collect communications information for archival purposes on behalf of, and as directed by, our Method Customers. This information may include emails, texts, websites, social media messages or posts, and other forms of data or electronic communications (“Archival Information”). Archival Information includes data about our Method Customers and the third parties they correspond with. We do not control or monitor the information our Method Customers collect and store through our Services, or their privacy practices or policies. It is our Customer’s obligation to obtain all necessary consents and to comply with all applicable laws with respect to the Customer’s communications and use of our services. Our Customer’s privacy policies or practices apply to Archival Information, the purposes for which the Customer collects Archival Information, how the Customer may use Archival Information and what choices the individual may have with respect to Archival Information. Individuals must contact the applicable Customer in order to correct, amend, or delete their information, or to opt out of any collection, uses or disclosure of their information by our Customer.
  

• Automatically Collected Information. We collect information automatically about how our Method Customers use our services (“Automatically Collected Information”). We do this via data collection technologies such as cookies, web beacons, gifs or other tracking technologies. We collect this information in order to monitor, support and improve our services or to provide Method Customers with certain customized features. We may use Automatically Collected Information to tell us how our Method Customers use our services, to improve our services or develop new products, services or features. We may combine this information with other information we collect.
  

We treat Customer Information, Information about our Customer’s Contacts, Archival Information and Automatically Collected Information as the confidential and proprietary information of our Method Customers, subject to the terms of any service agreement between Method and the Customer. We do not share Customer Information, Information about our Customer’s Contacts, Archival Information or Automatically Collected Information with third parties unless directed to do so by our Customer, as may be necessary to provide services to the Customer, to our advisors, affiliates, representatives, agents, service providers, in connection with a business transaction (such as a merger or sale), as allowed under the terms of our agreement with our Customer, or in response to a court order, subpoena, warrant or to comply with a legal requirement or to cooperate with an investigation. We may disclose Customer Information, Information about our Customer’s Contacts, Archival Information or Automatically Collected Information for the aforementioned reasons, or in order to protect our rights or the rights of our affiliates, Method Customers, partners or service providers.

We will retain Customer Information we process on behalf of our Method Customers for as long as needed to provide services to our Customers, or for the period of time requested by a particular Customer.

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Changes to this Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services or programs, email notification or privacy policy changes). We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.

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How to Contact Us

If you have any specific questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us via email or phone or by writing to us at the address below:

Send e-mail to: privacy@methodfi.com 

Send mail to our address:

Method Financial

Attn: Privacy Policy Inquiry

2261 Market Street #4192 San Francisco, CA 94114