Privacy Policy

1Who we are and what this policy covers

Emerald Finance ("Emerald," "we," "us" or "our") provides funding to small businesses across the United States. This Privacy Policy applies to information collected through this website (the "Site"), our application portal at app.emeraldfinanceus.com (the "Portal"), and our related communications with you (together, the "Services").

Our Services are offered to businesses and their owners, officers and authorized representatives. Some information we collect, such as an owner's name, contact details and personal credit information, is personal information about an individual, and this policy describes how we handle it.

2Information we collect

Information you give us

Contact and identity information: your name, business name, mailing address, email address, phone number, date of birth, and government identifiers such as a Social Security number or EIN when required to verify identity or underwrite a funding request.
Business and financial information: time in business, industry, revenue, bank and card-processing statements, existing financing, ownership details and other information you provide in an application.
Communications: the content of emails, calls, text messages and chats you exchange with us, which we may record or monitor for quality, training and compliance purposes where permitted by law.

Information we collect automatically

Device and usage data: IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, referring pages, pages viewed, links clicked and the dates and times of your visits.
Cookies and similar technologies: described in section 5 below.

Information from other sources

Credit bureaus and verification services: credit reports and scores, identity verification results and fraud-prevention data. Applying through the Portal generates a soft inquiry, which does not affect your personal credit score. A hard inquiry may be required before certain products are funded, and we will tell you before that happens.
Financial data providers: if you connect a bank account through a third-party data aggregator, we receive transaction and balance data that you authorize.
Payment processors, funding partners, referral partners and public records: information needed to evaluate, fund and service your account.

3How we use information

To evaluate applications, verify identity, prevent fraud, underwrite and price funding, and to fund, service and collect on accounts.
To communicate with you about your application, your account and our products, including by email, phone and text message where you have agreed to receive them.
To operate, secure, maintain and improve the Site, the Portal and our internal operations.
To comply with legal obligations, including anti-money-laundering, know-your-customer, state commercial financing disclosure and record-keeping requirements.
To market our products and, where permitted, those of our funding partners. You can opt out of marketing at any time (see section 6).
For any other purpose disclosed to you at the time of collection or with your consent.

We do not sell personal information for money. We share information in the following circumstances:

Funding and capital partners: Emerald may fund your request directly or arrange funding through third-party capital providers. We share application information with those providers so they can evaluate and fund your request. Each provider's own privacy policy governs its use of your information.
Service providers: companies that help us run our business, such as hosting, analytics, identity verification, credit reporting, bank data aggregation, e-signature, payment processing, customer communications and collections. They may use the information only to provide services to us.
Credit bureaus and fraud-prevention networks: to obtain reports and to report account performance where applicable.
Legal and safety: to comply with law, subpoenas, court orders or regulatory requests; to enforce our agreements; or to protect the rights, property or safety of Emerald, our clients or others.
Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization or sale of assets, in which case information may be transferred as a business asset.
With your direction or consent: for example, when you ask us to share information with your accountant or another lender.

5Cookies and analytics

The Site uses cookies and similar technologies to remember your preferences, understand how the Site is used and measure the effectiveness of our marketing. These may include:

Essential cookies needed for the Site and Portal to function.
Analytics cookies that tell us which pages are visited and how visitors move through the Site.
Advertising cookies set by us or advertising partners to show you relevant offers on other sites and to measure ad performance. Depending on your state, this may be considered "sharing" or "targeted advertising" that you can opt out of (see section 7).

Most browsers let you refuse or delete cookies through their settings. If you disable cookies, some features of the Site may not work. The Site does not currently respond to "Do Not Track" browser signals, but we honor Global Privacy Control signals where required by law.

6Your choices

Marketing email: use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. We may still send transactional and account messages.
Text messages: reply STOP to any text message to stop receiving texts from that number. Message and data rates may apply.
Phone calls: ask any representative to add you to our internal do-not-call list.
Cookies and interest-based advertising: adjust your browser settings, or use the opt-out tools at optout.aboutads.info and optout.networkadvertising.org.

7State privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights under state privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, and similar laws in Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana and other states. Subject to applicable exemptions, these rights may include the right to:

Know what personal information we collect, use and disclose, and request a copy of it.
Request that we correct inaccurate personal information.
Request that we delete personal information, subject to exceptions such as legal record-keeping requirements.
Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information, targeted advertising, and certain profiling.
Not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

Important exemptions. Much of the information we collect is subject to the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or is collected in a business-to-business context. Many state privacy laws exempt that information, so some rights may not apply to it.

Do not sell or share my personal information. We do not sell personal information for money. We may allow advertising cookies that constitute "sharing" or "targeted advertising" under some state laws. To opt out, adjust your cookie settings as described in section 5, enable a Global Privacy Control signal in your browser, or submit a request using the contact details in section 10.

How to submit a request. Contact us using the details in section 10. We will verify your identity before acting on a request, and you may designate an authorized agent to act on your behalf. We will respond within the time required by applicable law. If we deny your request, you may appeal by replying to our response.

California notice at collection. In the preceding 12 months we have collected the categories of personal information listed in section 2 for the purposes in section 3, and disclosed them to the categories of recipients in section 4. We retain personal information as described in section 8.

8Security and retention

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect information against unauthorized access, use or disclosure, including encryption in transit, access controls and vendor due diligence. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We keep information for as long as needed to provide the Services, comply with legal and regulatory obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. Application and account records are generally retained for at least the period required by applicable financial-services record-keeping laws, after which they are deleted or de-identified.

9Other important information

Children: the Services are not directed to anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from children.
Third-party sites: the Site links to third-party sites and tools, including the Portal, which may be operated with third-party technology. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.
United States only: the Services are intended for businesses in the United States and information is processed in the United States.
Changes: we may update this policy from time to time. The effective date at the top shows when it was last revised. Material changes will be posted on the Site and, where required, sent to you directly.

10How to contact us

For questions about this policy, or to exercise your privacy rights, contact us through our application portal at app.emeraldfinanceus.com and mark your message "Attn: Privacy." We will respond within the time required by applicable law.