Privacy & Cookies Policy

1. Who this policy covers

This policy applies to visitors to our Site, prospective and current borrowers and guarantors, investors, and others who interact with us. MBA Commercial Finance is a California-licensed finance lender (California Financing Law license No. 60DBO-202765) based in Los Angeles, California.

2. Information we collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of information:

Information you provide directly

• Contact and identity information — name, business name, email address, phone number, and mailing or business address (for example, when you submit the contact form or email us).
• Financing application information — information you provide on our equipment financing application, which may include your business details, the equipment to be financed, requested amounts, ownership and guarantor details, and financial information.
• Sensitive personal information — government identifiers such as a Social Security number (SSN) or Employer Identification Number (EIN), and financial account information, where required to evaluate and process a credit application or to service a loan. See Section 6.
• Communications — the contents of messages, documents, and correspondence you send us.

Information collected automatically

• Usage and device information — IP address, browser type, device type, pages viewed, referring pages, and similar data collected through cookies and similar technologies (see Section 7).

Information from third parties

• Credit and verification information — credit reports, background and identity verification, and related information from consumer reporting agencies, business credit bureaus, and other verification sources, used to evaluate applications and manage accounts.

3. How we collect information

We collect information when you submit our website contact form, download or submit our financing application, email or call us, become a borrower, guarantor, or investor, or browse the Site. Our website contact form is processed by a third-party form service (FormSubmit) that forwards submissions to our email. Client and investor dashboards are hosted on Airtable.

4. How we use your information

We use the information we collect to:

• respond to inquiries and communicate with you;
• evaluate, underwrite, approve, and process financing applications;
• verify identity and creditworthiness and prevent fraud;
• originate, fund, document, and service loans, and maintain client and investor account dashboards;
• operate, maintain, and improve the Site;
• comply with applicable laws, regulations, licensing obligations, and lawful requests; and
• establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

5. When we share information

We share information only as needed to provide our services and as permitted or required by law, including with:

• Service providers who perform functions on our behalf (for example, website hosting, our form-handling provider, our database/dashboard provider, e-signature, document storage, and IT support), under obligations to protect the information;
• Credit bureaus and verification providers in connection with evaluating and servicing financing;
• Funding sources, investors, and assignees in connection with originating, funding, or transferring a loan;
• Professional advisors such as attorneys, accountants, and auditors;
• Regulators and government authorities, and others, when required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or to protect our rights, safety, or property; and
• A successor entity in the event of a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets.

6. Social Security numbers & sensitive information

Our equipment financing application requests a Social Security number and other sensitive identifiers so we can verify identity and assess credit. We collect, use, and disclose this information only as reasonably necessary to evaluate and service your financing and to meet legal and regulatory obligations, and we apply reasonable safeguards to protect it.

If you choose to send sensitive information to us by email despite this notice, you do so at your own risk.

7. Cookies & analytics

Cookies are small text files stored on your device. Our Site may use a limited number of cookies and similar technologies that are necessary for the Site to function and, where applicable, to understand how visitors use the Site so we can improve it. We currently do not use cookies for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Third-party services we use (such as our web fonts provider, form-handling provider, and dashboard provider) may set their own cookies or process limited technical data when you use those features, subject to their own privacy policies.

You can control or disable cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect how parts of the Site function. Many browsers also offer a "Do Not Track" setting; because there is no common industry standard for responding to these signals, our Site does not currently respond to them.

8. How we protect your information

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. This includes offering secure, encrypted transmission for Social Security numbers and other sensitive documents on request (see Section 6) and limiting access to personal information to those who need it to perform their roles. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. How long we keep information

We retain personal information for as long as needed to provide our services, maintain account and loan records, and comply with our legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, and recordkeeping obligations, after which we take steps to delete or de-identify it. Retention periods for lending records are generally governed by applicable California and federal law. [Confirm specific retention periods with counsel and insert here if you wish to state them.]

10. Your California privacy rights

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), may give you the following rights with respect to personal information we hold about you:

• Right to know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, the sources, the purposes, and the categories of recipients;
• Right to delete personal information we have collected, subject to exceptions;
• Right to correct inaccurate personal information;
• Right to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information — we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA;
• Right to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information to what is necessary to provide our services; and
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights.

Important note for financial information: Much of the information we collect for lending is governed by the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the California Financial Information Privacy Act, and personal information regulated by those laws may be exempt from certain CCPA/CPRA rights.

To exercise a right, contact us at eitan@mbacf.com or (818) 583-6233. We will verify your request, typically by confirming information we already have on file, and will respond within the timeframes required by law. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf, subject to verification.

11. Financial privacy (GLBA)

As a finance lender, we are a financial institution subject to the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In connection with a financing application or loan, you will receive a separate GLBA privacy notice describing our information-sharing practices for nonpublic personal financial information ("NPI") and any choices you have. Where a GLBA notice applies, it governs that financial information.

As a general matter, the NPI that MBA Commercial Finance collects will not be provided to any of our affiliates or to any third party — other than as described in Section 5 above — unless expressly authorized by the customer.

12. Children's privacy

Our Site and services are intended for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us personal information, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.

13. Third-party links

Our Site may link to third-party websites and services (for example, the Airtable dashboards used in our client and investor portal). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy & Cookies Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above. Material changes will be posted on this page, and your continued use of the Site after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

15. How to contact us