Privacy notice

 

At Fortitude Financial Planning Ltd we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Notice explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website or seek our services, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We may change this Notice from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website or services, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Notice.

Any questions regarding this Notice and our privacy practices should be sent by email to theteam@fortitudefp.co.uk or by writing to Mark White, Director, Fortitude Financial Planning Ltd, 4 Selby Barns, Duncote, Towcester, Northants, NN12 8AL. Alternatively, you can telephone 01327 354321.

HOW DO WE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM YOU?

We obtain information when an enquiry is submitted on our website. If you seek our advice or other services we will collect information from you over the ‘phone, in meetings, by e-mail and via the completion of on-line questionnaires. We will also collect information about your existing arrangements from providers or other third parties; we will ensure we have your authority to contact them directly.

We use an on-line service to carry out conflict checks, anti-money laundering and sanctions checks and to fulfil our obligations anti-money laundering laws or regulations (including under The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017).

WHAT TYPE OF INFORMATION IS COLLECTED FROM YOU?

If you submit an enquiry on our website the personal information we collect will include your name, email address, and contact number as well as any other information you include in your message.

If you are seeking advice or other services from us we will undertake a “getting to know you” process. This will include obtaining information about your personal and financial circumstances and objectives. Where you have investments or polices we will obtain information on these either from you or upon consent from you directly from the providers concerned. We will assess your Attitude to Risk, Capacity for Loss and Return Required and record this in our documentation. We will retain records of any investments or policies that you arrange through us as well as those that you already have.

Where we are providing an ongoing service we will update appropriate information as part of our review process and note it on our records.

As all of this information is required to enable us to provide our services and comply with our regulator’s requirements, if you opt not to provide it we may not be able to continue to advise you.

You are under no legal obligation to provide your personal and financial information to us. However, if you do not provide sufficient information to us, we will be unable to assess your situation fully to provide you with best advice.

LEGAL GROUNDS FOR PROCESSING YOUR INFORMATION

We will rely on the following legal bases under UK Data Protection Legislation for processing your personal data:

  • Performance of, or anticipated entry into, a contract to provide you with a service. The personal data that we are required to collect in order to comply with our professional and regulatory obligations is needed in order for us to perform this contract – we would not be able to act for you without this personal data.

  • To satisfy a legitimate interest and allow us to contact you once you are a client. For example:

  • To celebrate a special occasion;

  • To inform you of developments at Fortitude or provide information relating to other issues that are relevant to your financial planning;

  • To invite you to a client event.

  • Compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, including:

  • The Financial Conduct Authority rules regarding how we provide advice to you, and how long we need to retain information supporting that advice;

  • The Financial Ombudsman Service rules which require us to evidence compliance with our Regulator’s policies, practices and procedures even after you have ceased to be a client;

  • Anti-Financial Crime or Whistleblowing regulations.

Where you have given your consent to us sending you marketing material. As we will explain at the time we collect your consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

HOW IS YOUR INFORMATION USED?

We will use your information to:

  • Act as the basis for any advice we provide;

  • Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;

  • Provide information to investment providers or life assurance firms for the purposes of arranging products and services for you;

  • Provide our ongoing service to you;

  • Meet our regulatory obligations in the services we provide to you.

FOR HOW LONG IS INFORMATION RETAINED?

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested however we will not process it once we have ceased to provide that service unless required to do so to satisfy a legitimate interest or comply with a legal obligation.

We are required by legislation and the Financial Conduct Authority rules to retain records for specified periods. These vary depending upon the nature of the service provided.

We may retain your data for the following periods. In the event that more than one period applies to the same data, we will retain the data to the last such period to expire:

  • If you engage us to prepare a Lifetime Cashflow / Financial Plan for you, or for any regulated advice or ongoing service, we will retain your data for a minimum of 6 and maximum of 80 years after the date that we cease to provide services to you.

  • If we arrange a contract or investment for you we will retain your data for a minimum of 6 and maximum of 80 years after the date that the contract or investment ceases / matures.

  • If we advise you about a pension transfer, pension conversion, pension opt-out or Free-Standing Additional Voluntary Contribution we will retain your data indefinitely.

  • If, following the initial meeting(s)/telephone call(s)/e-mail enquiry you decide not to engage with us for the provision of any service we will delete your data after 3 months. However, if we have provided any advice, verbal or written, during that initial enquiry, we will hold your data for a minimum of 6 years to comply with our legal obligation.

SENSITIVE DATA

We may need to collect sensitive personal data including information about your health, ethnic origin, or criminal prosecutions from you and third parties such as employers and credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies and other similar organisations in order to provide you with the services, for example where you require advice on protection or annuity products.

To provide our financial planning services, we must ensure we understand your health, beliefs, and other factors to ensure we are able to provide you with the most appropriate advice and products. This means that we may obtain your sensitive personal data from the third parties referred to above for the purpose of providing you with the services and share it with third party providers to obtain quotes on your behalf for example where we are providing you with annuity or protection advice as part of our services.

We believe that we can obtain and hold sensitive data about you under the lawful basis of ‘Legal Claims’.

WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers (including investment houses and life assurance firms), agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf such as risk profiling and compliance support. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.

Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes. We will only pass your information to other third parties when we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

CONTACTING YOU

We will make appropriate contact with you to provide the agreed services. Where this includes our ongoing service we will contact you at the agreed intervals to undertake our review. We may also contact you in between the agreed intervals if we believe that you need to take action (e.g. if you should consider making ISA or pension contributions before tax year end) or be aware of changes in the economic situation.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post, email, ‘phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: theteam@fortitudefp.co.uk or post.

YOUR RIGHTS IN RELATION TO YOUR INFORMATION

The accuracy of your information is important to us. Where we provide just an initial advice service the information will reflect your situation at that time and we will not normally update this (apart from a change of contact information). Where we are providing an ongoing service we will update the information as appropriate when we undertake a review with you. If between reviews you change your contact information please notify us and we will update our records.

You have a number of specific rights. These are summarised below:

  • Access – You may ask for a copy of the information Fortitude Financial Planning Ltd hold about you and we will provide this within one month of receipt free of charge (we may charge a fee for subsequent or duplicate requests).

  • Rectification – You may ask us to correct any information that we hold that is inaccurate or incomplete.

  • Erasure – You may ask us to delete or cease processing data in certain situations. Please note that we will have regulatory obligations to retain information for certain time periods and we will retain such information as we believe is necessary to fulfil these obligations.

  • Restrict processing – You may ask us to cease processing information. This means that we will be able to retain it but no longer act upon it. In the event that you no longer need our services and terminate them we will automatically cease processing information.

  • Portability – You may have the right to have your data transferred to another service provider in an appropriate electronic format. Please note that we will have regulatory obligations to retain copies of the information as outlined previously.

  • Objection – You may have the right to object to us processing information. You will have the right to object to us using it for marketing purposes.

This is a brief summary of your rights and there may be restrictions on some of them. If you wish to explore any of these rights at any time please contact us on the addresses above and we will be pleased to assist you.

PRECAUTIONS IN PLACE TO PROTECT THE LOSS, MISUSE OR ALTERATION OF YOUR INFORMATION

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it is retained securely and processed in a confidential manner.

Your information may be accessed by your Planner and our Client Support team for the purposes of providing our services to you. In addition, it may be accessed by our compliance consultants (or the FCA) for the purposes of ensuring compliance with our regulatory obligations and reviewing the quality of our advice.

Information may be transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that passes between us, and you should consider the risk of this. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

OUR WEBSITE

Personal identification information

We collect personal identification information from Users when Users subscribe to our email newsletter. Subscribers to our email newsletter can find an unsubscribe link in all our emails.

Contact form

If you use our contact form none of the data that you supply will be stored by our website and you will need to check a box to send us the email so we can use your data, but only to answer your specific enquiry.

Use of ‘cookies’

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

Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This Privacy Notice applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

SENDING YOUR INFORMATION OUTSIDE OF THE EEA

If we need to share your personal data with a recipient outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) (e.g. a professional advisor or third party engaged by us or you as part of our work under an engagement letter) we will ensure we do so in compliance with UK Data Protection Legislation, including where applicable by ensuring that the transfer is necessary to perform a contract in place with you or a contract entered into in your interests. If these transfers affect you, you may contact us to obtain more precise information and a copy of relevant documentation.

Our employees may access our systems remotely when working abroad (including from jurisdictions outside the European Economic Area). Where they do so, they are required to use our systems and access any personal data in accordance with all the usual policies and procedures.

RIGHT TO COMPLAIN

If you believe that we are not holding your information correctly or are unhappy at any dealings with us regarding your information you may complain to the Information Commissioners Office. You can do this via their website https://ico.org.uk/concerns or by calling 0303 123 1113.

REVIEW OF THIS NOTICE

We keep this Notice under regular review.

This Notice was last updated in May 2022.