OUR COMMITMENT
Our Commitment is to provide you with agricultural loan financing and other quality financial products and services. We obtain and use information about you to do so. We appreciate and respect the trust you show in providing information to us. We value our relationship with you, therefore, explaining to you how we collect, use and protect customer information is important to us.
WHY WE COLLECT CUSTOMER INFORMATION
We collect customer information to identify you, confirm facts about you, help us assess requests for financial products and services, and deliver financial products and services to you.
CUSTOMER INFORMATION WE COLLECT
We may get customer information from a variety of sources, such as:
- Information you, or others on your behalf, provide on applications and other forms, including identifying information such as name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and social security number and credit related information such as your assets, income, and liabilities.
- Information from consumer reporting agencies such as credit history and capacity.
- Information from outside sources like employers, marketing firms and others sources, such as demographic data.
Protecting Customer Information
Safeguarding customer information is important to us. We use systems, policies and procedures to maintain the accuracy of customer information and to protect it from loss, misuse, or alteration. Customer information is accessible by appropriate personnel who have a business need for the information. We provide training and communication programs to educate our personnel about the meaning and requirements of this privacy notice.
DEALER SECURITY INFORMATION
Our certified dealers are issued a user id and password to the online account access area. Each and every certified dealer is solely responsible for ensuring that only authorized employeeís of their organization may utilize the assigned id and password to access the online input application. The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. shall not be and is not responsible for any loss, claim or other liability that may arise from the unauthorized use of nay id or password. If a userís password is lost of stolen, it is the dealer/userís responsibility to notify The Cooperative Finance Associations, Inc. about the lost or stolen id and password so that it can be disabled and a new id and password and be assigned. It is also the dealers responsibility to info CFA when a certified lender is no longer with the organization, so that CFA and disable that id and password.
The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. authorized dealers have been granted access to submit online applications on behalf of CFAís Production Ag loan officers. This information submitted online is held with the utmost confidentiality and security. CFA complies with federal regulations that prohibits the unauthorized use of your information. The data submitted is securely transmitted to an authorized secure server, where at the least a 128-bit encryption or higher is used to protect your data.
The transmission of this website material shall not be construed to grant a license of any type under any patents, copyright, or trademark owned or controlled by The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc.
The information in this website is provided ìas isî without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. CFA shall not be responsible for error or omissions in this website. Although this site may contain links to other websites, these links are provided as a convenience. Such links are not under the control of The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. and we are not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. This inclusion of any link does not imply endorsements by The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. of the site, and The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. shall not have responsibility for information, which is referenced by or linked to this website
HOW WE SECURE YOUR INFORMATION
- We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) software, which automatically encrypts information you input
- We use encryption to protect your information contained in our customer list.
- We use a firewall to protect against unlawful intrusion.
- We limit access to your information on a need to know basis.
- It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.
- No system can guarantee absolute security, just as the finest lock can not guarantee physical security. However we take every reasonable precaution to assure that your data is secure.
- Another layer of protection would be for you to subscribe to a third party personal identity theft security service (e.g., Lifelock, Trusted ID, ID Watchdog, Indentity Guard)
HOW WE USE CUSTOMER INFORMATION
We use customer information to meet your requests for financial products and services, administering accounts, develop new financial products and services and comply with legal requirements. We also use customer information to determine which products or services might be of interest to you.
In striving to serve you, we sometimes share customer information with others so they may help us by providing services to us or by providing services on our behalf or jointly with us to you. We don’t sell personal information about you to unrelated companies for their independent use. We do share information as permitted by law. In the past, our customers were asked if they wanted to “opt out” of information sharing. However, because we limit our sharing as described in this notice, there is no reason for you to provide us an opt out request. We automatically “opt” you out of all sharing services with companies and organizations not affiliated with us or working with us on your behalf
SHARING INFORMATION WITHIN OUR DEALER NETWORK
We may share the information we collect about present and former customers within our cooperative dealer network. Our “Dealer Network” consists of a group of participating cooperatives related to us by common business ventures designed to bring cost effective financing to our borrowers. We share information within this network as a normal part of conducting company business and offering cost effective, customized products and services to customers. This sharing of information is limited. Shared information includes identifying information and information we get from our dealings with you and the relationship you have with us. We do not share customer credit information we collect from outside sources, such as credit reports, within our dealer network. We may share credit scores. We do this to ensure that the each lender, finance company or broker we approach on your behalf can make their best possible offer; they cannot do this honestly without accurate information
SHARING INFORMATION WITH UNRELATED COMPANIES
In order to provide you with the services you request and with other valuable financial products and services, we share customer information with unrelated companies — companies who are not members of our dealer network. This sharing allows us to: service accounts; provide the services or products requested; report our experiences; protect our business against fraud and unauthorized transactions; respond to governmental requests and regulatory requirements. We may also share information to offer financial products and services jointly with other financial service providers.
We may share customer information about present and former customers with the following types of companies:
- Select financial service providers who participate in joint marketing programs with us: such as other financial partners; and also others who provide products or services on our behalf such as our participating dealers, leasing agents, insurance agents, brokers and other types of insurance providers.
- Financial service providers and non-financial companies who provide services for us or on our behalf, such as companies that prepare account invoices or statements, help us service accounts, promote and market our products, provide computer and systems support and other services.
- Others, such as independent contractors or suppliers.
Unrelated companies receiving customer information from us enter agreements with us to protect the information they receive before information is provided. These agreements also limit the use of the information to providing services we request. We do not share customer information with other companies unless an agreement to protect customer information is in place, except as otherwise permitted by law
FUTURE CHANGES
This notice updates and replaces any previous notices you may have received from us about the collection, use and protection of customer information. We may change this privacy notice at any time and if we do, we will notify you as required by law
ADDITIONAL RIGHTS
Some states may provide additional privacy protections under existing or future state laws. We are committed to complying with applicable law when we share customer information
ON-LINE POLICY
This section describes our policy regarding information received about you during visits to this web site. The amount and type of information received depends on how you use this site. Please take a few minutes to read our complete Financial Privacy Policy Statement so you may understand how personal information is used and the measures we take to protect your personal information
NORMAL WEB SITE USAGE
You can visit our web site to read about our products and services, and company information, or use tools (e.g., budget planner and loan calculators) without telling us who you are and without revealing any personal information. The only information we collect and store during normal web site usage is the name of your Internet service provider, the web site you last visited, the pages you request, the date and time of those requests and the number of visits you made to our site.
We use this information to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of customer visits. This same information may be shared with third parties in order to provide these services or to analyze, store, or aggregate the information. It may also be shared with other third parties, working with us to improve our financial services. During normal web site usage, we do not collect or store personally identifiable information such as name, mailing address, email address, phone number, or social security number
ON-LINE COLLECTION OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
There are instances where The Cooperative Finance Association, Inc. (CFA) requests personally identifiable information to provide the web site visitor a service or correspondence (e.g., promotions and mailed brochures). This information, such as name, mailing address, email address, type of request, and possibly additional information, is collected and stored in a manner appropriate to the nature of the request as determined by CFA and is used to fulfill your request. Whenever we request such information, we will clearly explain how it will be used. If you tell us that the information should not be used as a basis for further contact, we will respect your request. The information you provide is used by CFA to improve the services we provide you. This information may also be provided to our agencies for use on behalf of CFA in accordance with our privacy statement. However, it is never provided or sold to any other company for that company’s independent use.
During the course of your visit, we may provide links to third party sites not controlled by CFA It is recommended that you check the specific privacy statements of any site before providing any personally identifiable information.
Electronic Mail Sent To Us That Contains Personal Information
Internet users may decide to send CFA personally identifying information, for example, in an electronic mail message containing information about your CFA product or service. CFA will only use this information to identify the user as a CFA customer and to determine how to respond to the electronic mail. We will use this information for the purpose identified in the email message and to enhance our understanding of you in order to improve our services to you.
What Are Cookies?
A “cookie” is a small line of text that is stored within your browser when you visit a cookie-enabled website. As you browse the Web, cookie-enabled sites will send cookies to your browser, along with certain web pages. Your browser probably has options that will let you control whether the browser accepts cookies, rejects cookies, or notifies you each time a cookie is sent to you.
If your browser is set to reject cookies, cookie-enabled websites will not recognize you when you return. This provides you with anonymity, but it also makes it very difficult to offer you customized services. It is also less secure than using cookies, because all of your specific data must be sent to the website each time you view a page. Accepting cookies means your private data can stay at the Web server, and the only information transmitted over the Internet is your ID cookie.
If your browser is set to accept cookies, any cookies that are sent to your browser are stored in your computer for a period of time. There are a few different types of cookies. A “session” cookie is stored only in your computer’s working memory (RAM) and only lasts for your browsing session. When you close all your browser’s windows, or when you shut down your computer, the session cookie disappears forever. A “permanent” cookie is stored on your computer’s hard drive until a specified date, which could be tomorrow, next week, or 10 years from now. Permanent cookies stay on your computer until either a) they expire, b) they are overwritten with newer cookies, c) you manually remove them.
We use permanent cookies to supply visitors to our site with a customized experience. These cookies do not involve personally identifiable information. We also use session cookies to customize your experience during a session, to aid in your navigation and use of the site, to develop generic web site metrics and other similar uses.
Questions
Our privacy practices are designed to provide a high level of protection for your personal information and our systems. If you have any questions or comments about our CFA Online Privacy Practices, you can contact us at 1-877-835-5232.
Changes
We reserve the right to change our On-Line Privacy Policy. A revised On-Line Privacy Policy will only apply to data collected subsequent to its effective date. Any revisions will be posted at least 10 days prior to its effective date.