Who we are

Abacus Financial Consultants LLC is a Financial Advisory business, licensed and regulated by the Securities and Commodities Authority in the United Arab Emirates. More information about who we are can be found here: About Abacus

What personal information we collect

We collect personal information about you, which includes your name, address, phone number and other information. We collect this information about you when you:

• Use our website
• Contact us about financial advice and or services
• Receive advice pertaining certain services
• Register to receive one of our newsletters

The type of personal information we collect will depend on the purpose for which it is collected and will include:

• Your contact details
• Information to verify your identity
• Family, lifestyle and health information
• Existing Financial Portfolio
• Your attitude towards investment risk
• Financial and bank details
• Employment information

We collect personal information directly from you. For example, we ask for personal information at the start of our relationship (to be able to provide advice) and in subsequent communications to verify your identity. This is a legal requirement and is important to help safeguard you and us against potential crime.

Where it is necessary we collect more sensitive information (such as politically exposed persons or detailed health information). When this is required, we will explain what information we require and why it is needed.

We may also collect information about you from other sources such as:

• Product Providers
• From Cookies (Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the website owners. To learn more about information collected through cookies, please click here: Cookie Policy (Do we have Cookies on our Website that would capture data?)

We keep your personal information only if it is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or for legal or regulatory reasons. Personal information will be securely disposed of when it is no longer required in accordance with our Data Protection Policy

How we use your personal information

We process your information for the following purposes.

To carry out our advice to you and to support and maintain that relationship. This includes the following:

• assessing your needs and objectives
• assessing and processing an application for a required product recommendation
• providing products and/or services to you, including the management of our relationship with you
• carrying out transactions you have requested
• to help you resolve any queries or issues
• record keeping ensuring the proposed products and/or services operate within the law and relevant regulatory requirements
• providing other services (e.g. enhanced due diligence, online services, reporting of any tax or levy)

To comply with legal and regulatory requirements. These requirements include the following:

• confirming your identity for regulatory purposes
• detecting and preventing fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery or other malpractice.

For specific business purposes to enable us to provide you with appropriate advice, products and services and a secure experience. Our business purposes include the following:

• verifying your identity for security purposes
• enhancing, modifying and personalising our recommendations
• providing communications which we think will be of relevance to you
• customer satisfaction research or statistical analysis
• audit and record keeping purposes
• enhancing the security of our network and information systems
• statistical analysis and wider market research to capture the views and opinions of our customers

You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for the business purposes listed above.

Who we share your information with and why

We share your information with trusted third parties, who perform tasks for us and help us to provide our products and/or services to you, and with other agencies where required by law, court order or regulation. These include:

• recommended product providers and any other party authorised by you
• third parties who perform tasks for us to help us provide our services to you (these third parties may be based in countries outside the EU)
• a third party to verify your identity, in line with money laundering or other requirements
• organisations, including the police and fraud prevention agencies, to prevent and detect fraud
• regulatory or governmental agencies such as UAE Securities and Commodities Authority, EU, UAE central Bank, the IOM Financial Services Authority.
• an appointed discretionary asset manager or custodian to meet their legal or regulatory requirements
• a prospective buyer (or its advisors), for due diligence purposes, if we are considering a sale of any of our business or assets
• a third party to conduct market research on our behalf, to help us improve and develop the products and services we provide to you and our other customers

How we keep your Information Secure

We are committed to ensuring the confidentiality of the personal information that we hold, and we continue to review our security controls and related policies and procedures to ensure that your personal information remains secure.

When we contract with third parties, we require that they have appropriate security, privacy and confidentiality measures in place to ensure that personal information is kept secure.

If we work with third parties in countries outside the EU we ensure these are countries that the European Commission has confirmed have an adequate level of protection for personal information, or the third party receiving the personal data has provided adequate safeguards and agrees to treat your information with the same level of protection as we would.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us:

• for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• to update or correct your personal information
• to delete your information
• to restrict processing of your personal information where appropriate.

In certain circumstances you also have the right to:

• object to the processing of your personal information
• object to automated decision making and profiling
• data portability

How to contact us

If you have questions about this notice, or need further information about our privacy practices, please contact our Compliance Manager. If you wish to raise a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, please contact our Compliance Manager who will investigate the matter.

• Email: compliance@abacus.ae