Privacy Policy

We respect your privacy and treat your personal information as confidential. Our Privacy Notice explains how we use, collect and share your personal information. This notice is important to us. We are committed to taking steps to protect your privacy when you use our Website and implementing business practices that comply with all relevant legislation, including the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"). In this policy, we explain how we will use and protect your personal information.

What is personal information? 

If we refer to "personal information" or "information" in this policy, we mean personal information as defined in POPIA. It includes, for example, your full name, surname, email address, contact details, and location.

Information we collect about you 

We generally collect, store and use the following information: your first name(s), surname, business name, phone numbers, e-mail address, IP address or cookie information, location information, demographic information including your age and gender, information from your browser including your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers and any other information which we reasonably need to perform our obligations in terms of the agreement with you when you use our services.

Sources of information we collect about you include:

We collect information about you from the following categories of sources:

  • You directly, when you sign a contract to use our services; 
  • Your devices (e.g. computers, mobile phones and tablets) when you interact with our website (www.dsmfinance.co.za) or use our Services; 
  • Other sources, including: 
    • Online advertising and third party analytics companies;
    • Publicly available sources (such as public records of criminal convictions and arrest records).

How we use your information:

We use your information to provide our services to you and generally for purposes of our relationship. In some instances, we collect and store information about your location. We convert your IP address or mobile GPS data into a rough geo-location. We may use location information to improve and personalise our services for you. You can set your web browser to refuse cookies.

Purposes of Processing Personal Information

We will only process adequate and relevant information to:

  • provide services set out in our agreement;
  • operate and manage your account;
  • monitor and analyse our business;
  • contact you by email, SMS, or other means to tell you about our products and services (you can always opt out from future marketing);
  • form a view of you as an individual and to identify, develop or improve services that may interest you;
  • carry out market research, business and statistical analysis;
  • carry out audits;
  • perform other administrative and operational tasks like testing our processes and systems; and
  • comply with our regulatory or other obligations

The information you provide or we collect is used for:

  • responding to your requests for certain information or services;
  • communicating with you about new offers;
  • internal reporting and development; and
  • any other purpose for which you give your permission, or where we are otherwise permitted or required in terms of the law to use such personal information, or for some purpose in the public interest.

Quality and access to your information:

We want to ensure that your information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is inaccurate, by sending an email to info@dsmfinance.co.za

Right to object:

You may, on reasonable grounds, object to us using your information directly to us. If you object, we will stop using your information, except if the law allows its use.

Lodging a complaint:

If you believe we are using your information unlawfully, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator.

Children's information:

We do not intentionally collect or use information of children (persons under the age of 18 years).

Sharing of personal information:

We respect your privacy and we hate spam as much as you do. We will keep your personal information confidential and only share it with others in terms of this policy, or if you consent to it, or if the law requires us to share it. We have trusted relationships with carefully selected third parties who perform services for us. All these service providers have a contract with us in terms whereof they have a legal obligation to secure your personal information and to use it only in a way that we permit.

How secure is your information?

We protect and manage information that we hold about you by using electronic and computer safeguards such as firewalls, data encryption, as well as physical and electronic access control to our buildings. We only authorise access to information to those employees who require access to fulfil their designated responsibilities.

Retention of information:

We retain information in accordance with the required retention periods by law or for legitimate business purposes. We will only retain your information for the purposes explicitly set out in this policy. We may keep information indefinitely in a de-identified format for statistical purposes. This policy also applies when we retain your information.