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Privacy Policy

The United Kingdom and the European Economic Area

Last updated: March 2023

1. Introduction

YouLend Limited (“YouLend”, together with its wholly-owned subsidiaries, hereafter “YouLend Group”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. The purpose of this Privacy Notice is to explain how we collect and use personal information in connection with our business.  

Depending on the region in which you are located, the following YouLend Group companies are responsible for the collection and processing of your personal data:

• UK and European Economic Area (“EEA”) (excluding Germany):  YouLend, 90 High Holborn, WC1V 6LJ.

• Germany: YouLend GmbH, Maximilianstr. 54, 80538 Munich, and YouLend, 90 High Holborn, WC1V 6LJ.

Article 27 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) requires organisations that are not established in the European Union to designate a representative in the EU if they are subject to GDPR. YouLend Limited and YL I Limited’s representative in the EU is YouLend GmbH.

This Privacy Notice is governed by our Terms of Use.

The processing of personal data is subject to the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (GDPR) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and any other legislation that replaces the GDPR in the UK.

2. Contact information

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns relating to this Privacy Notice. You may contact us by e-mail to dpo@youlend.com. Additional information can be obtained at www.youlend.com.

3. Personal data collected by YouLend

Personal data means information about a living individual who can be identified from that information (either by itself or combined with other information) (the “Data Subject”).

YouLend may collect and process the following personal data:

• Data you give us

You may give us information as part of your, or your businesses’ application, or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address, identification number, financial information, information about any vulnerable circumstances you tell us about, or other personal information.

• Data we collect about you

We will collect details of your transactions with us, including any cards or accounts.

We may collect technical information, including the Internet Protocol (“IP”) used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information and operating system information.

Telephone calls you make to us may be recorded and these recordings may be used for training purposes, or to meet our regulatory requirements. Any data provided during the call will be used and held in accordance with the provisions of this Privacy Notice.

• Information we receive from other sources

We work closely with third parties (for example, business partners, introducers, sub-contractors in technical payment and delivery services, analytics providers, credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies) and may receive information about you from them. This includes information about your background and history, including credit information, and criminal record information as well as information about how you use our products and services.

4. How YouLend use, disclose, and process personal data

How we use your personal data Our legal basis for using you data

Providing our services

When you apply for funding, we will use your personal data to check your identity and decide whether to approve your application, as well as how much funding we can offer.

We use your personal data to:

  • Meet our contractual and legal obligations relating to any YouLend products you use.
  • Provide you with customer support services and help you understand how you can use our products and services.

To carry out contractual obligations between you and us (or your business and us).

Legitimate interests (we need to be efficient about how we meet our obligations, and we want to provide you with good products and services).

Legal obligations.

Protecting against financial crime

We will use your personal data to check your identity and to protect against fraud, money laundering and other financial crime. We also use it to help us better understand your company's financial circumstances and manage financial crime risk related to your YouLend funding.

Legal obligations.

Marketing

We use your personal data to:

  • Provide you with information about any other products or services we offer.
  • Provide you with information about our partner's promotions or offers which we think you might be interested in.
  • Allow partners and other organisations to provide you with information about their products and services.
  • Measure or understand the effectiveness of our marketing and advertising, and provide relevant advertising to you.
  • Ask your opinion about our products and services.

Where national law allows, we will assume you want us to contact you with information about YouLend products, services, offers and promotions. Where national law requires us to obtain your consent to send direct marketing messages, we will do so in advance. You can ask us to stop sending you marketing information, or using your personal data for marketing purposes at any time by contacting dpo@youlend.com.

Legitimate interests (to send business-to-business marketing, develop our products and services, ensure our marketing is relevant to your interests, and to be efficient about how we meet our legal and contractual duties).

Consent (where we are legally required to get your consent for business-to-business marketing).

Improving our services

We may use your personal data to help us develop and improve the services we offer.

Legitimate interests (to understand how our products are used so we can develop new products and improve the products we currently provide).

Meeting our legal obligations, enforcing our rights and other legal uses

We use your personal data to:

  • Share it with other organisations (for example, government authorities, law enforcement authorities, tax authorities and fraud prevention agencies).
  • If this is necessary to meet our legal or regulatory obligations (for example, some countries require us to understand vulnerability needs which may require additional support)
  • In connection with legal claims.
  • To help detect or prevent crime.

Sometimes, we are legally required to ask you to provide information about other people. For example, we might ask you to explain your relationship with someone who has made repayments towards your YouLend funding. Where you, or your company, give us personal data about other people, it is your responsibility to ensure they understand how we will process their personal data.

To carry out contractual obligations between you and us (or your business and us).

Legitimate interests (for example, to protect YouLend during a legal dispute).

Substantial public interest (if we process your sensitive personal data to keep to legal requirements that apply to us).

Legal obligations.

5. Automated Processing

In the course of providing products and services to you we may process your personal information by automated means, to include profiling. What this means is that we will use computer software or predictive analysis to automatically evaluate circumstances to identify risks or to predict certain outcomes.

Examples of this type of processing include automatically calculating funding limits, obtaining credit reference checks, and the assessment of account activity to detect and prevent financial crime.

Profiling is a useful tool as we try to understand the Data Subjects who use our services, and their specific needs in more detail. It gives us the opportunity to use personal information to tailor our marketing and product offering but also to ensure that we achieve fair customer outcomes.

You have the right to opt out of profiling for marketing purposes.

6. Storing personal data

By providing you with products or services, we create records that contain your information, such as account records, activity records, and funding records. Records can be held on a variety of media (physical or electronic) and formats.

We manage our records to help us to provide our services (for example for operational reasons, such as dealing with any queries relating to your account) and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Records help us demonstrate that we are meeting our responsibilities and to keep as evidence of our business activities.

Retention periods for records are determined based on the type of record, the nature of the activity, product or service, the country in which the YouLend Group company is located and the applicable local legal or regulatory requirements.

We normally keep account records for at least five years after our relationship ends, whilst other records are retained for shorter periods. Retention periods may be changed from time to time based on business or legal and regulatory requirements.

We may on exception retain your information for longer periods, particularly where we need to withhold destruction or disposal based on an order from the courts or an investigation by law enforcement agencies or our regulators.

7. Sharing your personal data

Category Details

Companies that provide services to us

These are companies that help us provide services you use and need to process details about you for this reason. These include:

  • Analytical, Know Your Customer (KYC) and cyber security service providers that help with identity verification or fraud checks. These providers may utilise biometric technology to help identify you if we are unable to do so using other methods. We will always ask before conducting any checks of this nature.
  • Cloud computing power, storage and software providers.
  • Our business intelligence and analytics platform provider.
  • Companies that help us with functional analytics.
  • Companies that help us with marketing.
  • Companies that help us with customer support and managing your account.
  • Companies that provide us with banking, and other financial services.
  • Companies that help us with fraud and financial crime prevention.

Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies

In order to process your application, we will supply your personal information to third party partners, including to Experian and CIFAS and they will give us information about your business and information about people connected to the business, such as a company proprietor or directors. We carry out these checks for the purposes of detecting and preventing fraud and money laundering.

During the time that you have an active account with us, these partners, e.g., Experian may make periodic searches and alert us to any changes about your business, or the people connected to your business, that we may need to investigate as part of our ongoing management of your account.

The ways in which Experian use and share personal information are explained in more detail at https://www.experian.co.uk/legal/crain/.

The ways in which CIFAS use and share personal information as well as potential consequences if fraud is confirmed are explained in more detail at https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

Anyone you give us permission to share you information with

This could be people you have asked to represent you, like solicitors.

Our partners

We may share information about you with:

  • Authorities that spot and stop financial crime, money laundering, terrorism and tax evasion if the law says we have to, or if it is necessary for other reasons.
  • The police, courts or dispute resolution bodies if we have to.
  • Other banks to help trace money if you are a victim of fraud or other crimes, or if there is a dispute about a payment.
  • Any other third parties where necessary to meet our legal obligations.

Law enforcement and other external parties

If you default on any borrowing with us, we may share your contact details with debt purchasers.

8. Transferring information overseas

We may transfer your information to organisations in other countries (including to other companies within the YouLend Group) on the basis that anyone to whom we pass it to protects it in the same way we would and in accordance with applicable laws.

In the event that we transfer information to countries outside of the UK and EEA (which includes countries in the European Union as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), we will only do so where:

• There has been a national-level decision that the country or the organisation we are sharing your information with will protect your information adequately;

• The transfer has been authorised by the relevant data protection authority; and/or

• We have entered into a contract with the organisation with which we are sharing your information to ensure your information is adequately protected.

9. Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to collect and use data as a part of the services we provide.  Like many technology firms, we use this data to provide the best experience, as well as understand how our website is used. Details of our Cookies Policy can be found https://youlend.com/cookiepolicy.

10. What rights do you have?

Under data protection legislation, you have various rights with respect to your personal data.  To exercise your rights, please contact us at dpo@youlend.com. Your rights include the right to:

• Question any data about you that you think is incorrect and have us take reasonable steps to correct it for you.

• Be informed about how we process your data.

• Request the erasure of personal data concerning you in certain situations.

• Access personal data and copies (free of charge, where reasonable for us to do so at the time) concerning you collected by us in the course of our relationship with you.

• Withdraw consent for the processing of personal data concerning you for e.g., direct marketing.

• Object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or which similarly may significantly affect you.

• Object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data.

• Otherwise, restrict our processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

• The right to move, copy or transfer your personal data (where reasonable and proportionate for us to do so).

• The right to complain if you are not happy with the way we have handled your data. If you are unhappy with the way we handle your complaint, you can refer the matter to a supervisory authority:

o In the UK –The Information Commissioners Office (ICO). For more information, visit https://ico.org.uk.

o In the EU – You have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in the Member State of your residence.  The supervisory authority responsible for the activities of YouLend GmbH is Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (BayLDA). They can be contacted via postelle@lda.bayerb.de

11. Changes to this Privacy Notice

By submitting your information to us, you agree to the use of the information as set out in this Privacy Policy.

We may update and amend this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting the changes on this page. Any changes will become effective immediately upon posting to our website. When we make material changes to this Privacy Policy which in our discretion may affect your personal data, we’ll provide you with notice as appropriate under the circumstances.

Your continued use of our website and our services following any changes to this Privacy Policy will mean you accept those changes.