This privacy policy explains how ML Financial Associates Ltd uses 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 and investment management 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 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 policy 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?

The primary legal basis that we intend to use for the processing of your data is for the performance of our contract with you. The information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal data we would also be unable to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.

Where special category data is required we’ll obtain your explicit consent in order to collect and process this information.

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 will not 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.

We also outsource some activities other than those specified above to third party administrative support services and we may need to send your details to these service providers in the normal course of our business.

Where third parties are involved in processing your data we will 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 will only act in accordance with our written instructions.

Where it is necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party we will use appropriate security measures, such as password protection and the encryption of data, to protect your personal data in transit.

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.

However, in order to ensure that we are able to protect both you as clients and ML as an advisory firm, we reserve the right to retain data for longer where we believe it’s in all our legitimate interests to do so. In any case, we’ll not keep your personal data for longer than seven years after your death, or if you hold a joint plan with us then for no longer than seven years following the second death.

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 would 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 would like to send you information about our products and services which may be of interest to you. If you have 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, or by clicking here

Cookies

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

For further information visit https://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 contains 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 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 will place any updates on this web page (and/or) inform you of any changes when they occur.

This privacy policy was last updated on 18th April 2018.

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 info@mlfa.co.uk

Or write to us at:

ML Financial Associates Ltd
The Main Barn
Elm Farm Business Park
Norwich Common
Wymondham
NR18 0SW