Privacy Notice

Who We Are

London City Group (‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’) gather and process your personal data in accordance with this privacy notice and in compliance with the relevant data protection Regulation and laws. This notice provides you with the necessary information regarding your rights and our obligations, and explains how, why and when we process your personal data.

London City Group’s registered office is at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ and we are a company registered in England and Wales under company number 10643686. We are registered in the Information Commissioner's Office Register; registration number ZA274228, and are the Controller when processing your data. Our designated Compliance Officer is Margaret Thomas, who can be contacted at 25 Finsbury Circus, London, EC2M 7EE.

Data That We Collect

London City Group processes your personal data to meet our legal, statutory and contractual obligations and in order that we can provide you with our products and services. We will never collect any unnecessary personal data from you and do not process your information in any way, other than as specified in this notice.

The personal data that we collect from you may include: -

Name

Date of Birth

Home Address (registered and place of business)

Business Address (registered and place of business)

Personal Email

Business Email

Home Telephone No.

Mobile Telephone No.

National Insurance No.

Passport

Driver’s License

Statement & Accountants Reports

Financial Details

Business Plan

Commercial Lease

Utility Bills

We collect data from different places including: -

Directly from you

Third party acting on your behalf, e.g. an intermediary, partner, advisor, broker

Website enquiries

Email enquiries

Online forms

SMS messages

Publicly available sources

Marketing organizations

Suppliers

Franchisor

Referral

We will only collect data in line with relevant regulations and law and this may relate to any of our products or services you apply for, currently hold or have held in the past.

You are responsible for making sure you give us accurate and up to date information

How We Use Your Personal Data

London City Group will use your data to provide any products and services you have requested and for other business purposes, for example:

To confirm your identity and address

To carry out your instructions

To offer you other services we believe may benefit you unless you ask us not to

London City Group takes your privacy very seriously and will never disclose, share or sell your data without your consent; unless required to do so by law. We only retain your data for as long as is necessary and for the purpose(s) specified in this notice. Where you have consented to us providing you with promotional offers and marketing, you are free to withdraw this consent at any time.

We also process personal information for certain legitimate business purposes, which include some or all the following:

Where the processing enables us to enhance, modify, personalize or otherwise improve our services/communications for the benefit of our customers

To identify and prevent fraud

To enhance the security of our networked and information systems

To better understand how users, interact with our website(s)

 To determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and advertising.

Whenever we process data for these purposes we will ensure that we always keep your Personal Data rights in high regards and take account of these rights. You have the right to object to this processing if your wish, and if you wish to do so please click here. Please note that if you object this may affect our ability to carry out a service above for your benefit.

 The purposes and reasons for processing your personal data are detailed below:

We collect your personal data in the performance of a contract or to provide a service and to ensure that contracts are completed efficiently and information can be sent to the correct address

We collect and store your personal data as part of our regulatory requirements for the financial services regulators

We collect and store your personal data as part of our own legal obligation for business accounting and tax purposes

 We will share your personal data with your consent with White Rose Finance Group Ltd, if you are seeking commercial finance

We will occasionally send you marketing information where we have assessed that it is beneficial to you as a customer and in our interests. Such information will be non-intrusive and is processed on the grounds of legitimate interests

We will use your data if we (or a third-party) have a legitimate interest which is not overridden by your interest or fundamental rights and freedoms. Such legitimate interest will be the providing of brokerage/advisory services by us, administrative or operational processes within London City Group and occasional direct marketing

Your Rights

You have the right to access any personal data that London City Group processes about you and to request information about: -

What personal data we hold about you

The purposes of the processing

The categories of personal data concerned

The recipients to whom the personal data has/will be disclosed

How long we intend to store your personal data for

If we did not collect the data directly from you, information about the source

If you believe that we hold any incomplete or inaccurate data about you, you have the right to ask us to correct and/or complete the information and we will strive to do so as quickly as possible; unless there is a valid reason for not doing so, at which point you will be notified.

You also have the right to request erasure of your personal data or to restrict processing (where applicable) in accordance with the data protection laws; as well as to object to any direct marketing from us. Where applicable, you have the right to data portability of your information and the right to be informed about any automated decision-making we may use. London City Group does not currently utilize, and has no plans to use, any form of automated decision making to make decisions about its clients.

If we receive a request from you to exercise any of the above rights, we will always ask you to verify your identity before acting on the request; this is to ensure that your data is protected and kept secure.

If you decide that you no longer want to receive direct marketing material from us, you may choose to opt out or request that we cease sending information to you. This request can be sent to the designated Compliance Officer, Margaret Thomas, who can be contacted at 25 Finsbury Circus, London, EC2M 7EE.

What we will require from you

We will always request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access Personal Data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that Personal Data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Accuracy of Data

It is important that the Personal Data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if your Personal Data changes during your relationship with us.

Change of Purpose

We will only use your Personal Data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason which is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your Personal Data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

How Your Data will be Stored

We store your data and information on servers which are located and hosted in the United Kingdom. However, the data we collect from you may be transferred only with your explicit consent to a location outside the European Economic Area (EEA), where it will be used, processed and stored to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.

This data may be used by:

Partners and employees based in Hong Kong, operating outside the EEA who work for and with London City Group and those who process data, records and information on their behalf. This includes 3rd parties engaged in, among other things the fulfilment of our contract with you and the provision of support services.

London City Group will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data information and records are treated securely and in accordance with GDPR (including ensuring that such transfer, processing and storage is performed in accordance with the rules outlined in the regulation. All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. (See Safeguarding Measures)

Sharing and Disclosing Your Personal Data

We do not share or disclose any of your personal data without your consent, other than for the purposes specified in this notice or where there is a legal requirement. London City Group may share your information with White Rose Finance Group Ltd, with your consent (or under our preparatory or actual contractual obligations), as London City Group are Agents of White Rose Finance Group Ltd who provides the below services and business functions; however, all processors acting on our behalf only process your data in accordance with instructions from us and comply fully with this privacy notice, the data protection laws and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

For more information about White Rose Finance Group Ltd, please read their Privacy Notice at http://www.whiterosefinance.com/data-protection/ 

White Rose Finance Group Ltd provides credit brokerage professional finance services to SME businesses in the UK who are seeking alternative financial options to satisfy their funding requirements. London City Group is an Agent of the White Rose Finance Group Ltd who operates in the market as a Credit Broker, authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under - Reference Number - 630772 – and who provide a range of financial brokerage services to business and personal customers. London City Group conducts this activity through London City Debt Introductions Ltd (Reference No. 787785) which in turn uses the name London City Commercial Finance. London City Commercial Finance is not tied to any lender or group of lenders and operates on a whole of market basis, sourcing financial services and products for our customers from a broad range of lending organizations. We will only provide them with your personal data with your consent, to meet business and legal requirements so that your inquiry might be dealt with appropriately.  

London City Group affiliated companies hold Business Advisory Brokers licenses and operate under franchise agreements with Transworld Business Advisors UK Limited which in turn holds the master franchise for the United Kingdom (and is an affiliated company) with Transworld Business Advisors LLC (“TBA”) and based in the United States of America. TBA are experienced operators within the business brokerage industry for nearly 40 years, specializing in businesses sales.

For more information about Transworld Business Advisors, please read their Privacy Notice at https://www.tworldba.co.uk/privacy-policy/

We may also share your information with other agents, subcontractors and or service providers who work with us, as well as credit reference and fraud prevention agencies, if we have a legal obligation to do so.

Safeguarding Measures

London City Group takes your privacy seriously and takes every reasonable measure and precaution to protect and secure your personal data. We work hard to protect you and your data from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction and have several layers of security measures in place such as encryptions, restricted access, Multi-Factor Authentication (login security), firewalls, anti-virus/malware.

Transfers Outside the EU

Personal data in the European Union is protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but some other countries may not necessarily have the same standard of protection for your personal data. London City Group does occasionally transfer or store personal data outside of the EU. But this would only be with the explicit consent of a client or unless we are required to do so by regulators.

Consequences of Not Providing Your Data

You are not obligated to provide your personal data to London City Group, however, as this information is required by us to provide you with our services, we will not be able to offer any of our services without it.

Legitimate Interests

As noted in the ‘How We Use Your Personal Data’ section of this notice, we occasionally process your personal data under the legitimate interests’ legal basis. Where this is the case, we have carried out a thorough Legitimate Interests’ Assessment (LIA) to ensure that we have weighed your interests and any risk posed to you against our own interests; ensuring that they are proportionate and appropriate.

We use the legitimate interests’ legal basis for processing your data such as name and email address etc. for marketing purposes. We will review your data every 12 months or so to determine whether it is necessary for us to continue retaining it for marketing purposes based on legitimate interests; mainly that we may be able to provide our services to you based on changing commercial environments and interests.

Data Retention

London City Group only ever retains personal data for as long as is necessary and we have strict review and retention policies in place to meet these obligations. We are required under UK tax law to keep your basic personal data (name, address, contact details) for a minimum of 7 years after which time it will be destroyed. The FCA requires that Commercial Finance Brokers retain records for a period of at least 5 years, to enable them to fulfil its supervisory tasks and to perform the enforcement actions under the regulatory system including Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFIR and the Market Abuse Regulation. HMRC also has a statutory requirement of at least 7 years for tax purposes.

Where you have consented to us using your details for direct marketing, we will keep review the data every six months and we will delete data that is no longer needed, unless you notify us otherwise and/or withdraw your consent before the six months lapses.

Fees

You will in general not have to pay a fee to exercise any of your individual rights mentioned in this Privacy Notice. However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request to exercise your individual rights is manifestly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in some circumstances, however, we would give a reason for the refusal and provide details of any recourse available to you.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time. We will make an updated copy of such privacy notice available on our website.

Cookie Notice

We use cookies on our website to provide our services and help to collect data. They help to improve your user experience and give you more personalised features and content.

A ‘cookie’ is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user’s computer by the user’s web browser while the user is browsing. When you visit a site that uses cookies for the first time, a cookie is downloaded onto your computer/mobile device so that the next time you visit that site, your device will remember useful information such as visited pages or logging in options.

Cookies are widely used to make websites work, or to work more efficiently, and our site relies on cookies to optimize user experience and for features and services to function properly.

Most web browsers allow some control to restrict or block cookies through the browser settings, however if you disable cookies you may find this affects your ability to use certain parts of our website or services. We think that they are useful but it is your choice as to whether you allow them or not.  

For more information about cookies visit https://www.aboutcookies.org.

Further information

If you have any concerns or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact compliance@londoncitygroup.biz

London City Group | 0207 687 0343 | compliance@londoncitygroup.biz | www.londoncitygroup.biz

London City Group is registered in England. Company No: 10643686. Registered Office: 71-75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ.L