American Principle Bank
Privacy Notice

Privacy Commitment

We at American Principle Bank believe the confidentiality and protection of customer information is one of our fundamental responsibilities.  Your privacy is important to us.  We recognize that one of our most important assets is our customers' trust.  Our customers have the right to expect that their nonpublic personal information remains confidential and secure.

We have developed this Privacy Notice to inform you of our practices regarding the collection, use, disclosure, and security of your nonpublic personal information.

"Nonpublic personal information" is nonpublic personally identifiable financial information about you that we obtain in connection with providing a financial product or service to you.  For example, nonpublic personal information includes information regarding your account balance, payment history, or debit card utilization.

We will maintain standards that are designed to ensure that your nonpublic personal information is private and secure at all times, and we will explain our principles of financial privacy to our customers on a regular basis.

This Privacy Notice applies only to individuals who apply for or obtain a financial product or service from American Principle Bank primarily for personal, family or household purposes, or the individual's legal representative.  The practices described in this Privacy Notice will continue to apply to you if you become a former customer.

We may add to or revise this Privacy Notice at any time, and will notify you if then required by law.  We maintain a current copy of our Privacy Notice on our Internet site at www.americanprinciplebank.com.

Confidentiality and Security of Nonpublic Personal Information

We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.  We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard your nonpublic personal information.

Our Collection and Use of Information about You

We work to maintain accurate information about our customers.  We may collect nonpublic personal information about you in order to understand your needs, administer our business, process transactions, and provide you with products and services.  We obtain nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

• Information we receive from you, such as on applications or other forms (such as your name, address, social security number, assets, and income), whether in writing, verbally, or electronically;
• Information about your transactions with us, such as your account balance, transaction details, payment information, and credit usage;
• Information we receive from third parties, such as credit reporting agencies (e.g. your creditworthiness and credit history); and
• Password, Personal Identification Number (“PIN”), and other client information about you that we obtain in connection with our efforts to protect against fraudulent or unauthorized use of our services.

When you visit our website, we may collect non-identifying information such as:

• Date and time our website was accessed
• IP address (numeric address given to computers connected to the Internet)
• Web browser used

Some areas of our website may use a “cookie” stored in the visitor’s computer memory or hard disk drive to facilitate certain functions, including verifying whether you have visited our website before.  The cookie captures no personal identifying information.  You can set your Internet browser to warn when placement of a cookie is requested, and can then decide whether or not to accept it.  By rejecting a cookie, some features of our website might not function properly or be available to you.

If you decide to contact us via general (non-secure) email, please keep in mind that general email on the Internet is not secure.  We cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information sent to us via general Internet email.  We strongly discourage you from including your social security number, date of birth, account number(s), or any other form of personal financial or identifying information in general Internet email to us.  When you communicate by email to us, we will use your email information only for the specific purpose of responding to your comments or questions, and as allowed by law.  We will not sell your email address.

 
Nonpublic Personal Information We Disclose
 
We comply with the requirements of the California Financial Information Privacy Act, as implemented by Division 1.2 of the State of California Financial Code.  We do not sell, share, transfer, or otherwise disclose (nor do we reserve the right to sell, share, transfer, or otherwise disclose) any nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to or with any nonaffiliated third parties without the prior consent of the consumer to whom the nonpublic personal financial information relates, except to nonaffiliated third parties as permitted by law.

We are permitted by law to disclose, and do disclose, nonpublic personal information about you to third parties in certain circumstances, including, but not limited to:

• In order to effect, process, or confirm transactions you have requested or to maintain or service your accounts;
• To supply information to a consumer reporting agency;
• When required by law, including, but not limited to, in compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, Internal Revenue Code, and the USA Patriot Act;
• To comply with a properly authorized civil, criminal, administrative, or regulatory investigation or subpoena or summons by federal, state, or local authorities;
• To law enforcement agencies investigating criminal activity; and
• When you have provided your consent.

We do not disclose nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to third parties except as set forth in this Privacy Notice or as permitted by law.   We never sell any customer information for any reason.
 
Notify Us of Inaccurate Information We Report to Consumer Reporting Agencies
 
Please notify us if we report any inaccurate information about your account(s) to a consumer reporting agency.  Your written notice describing the specific inaccuracy(ies) should be sent to use at the following address:

American Principle Bank
4051 Broad Street
Suite 140
San Luis Obispo, CA.  93401
  
Questions or Comments
 
If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Notice, or concerns about the protection and confidentiality of your personal financial information, please visit us in person, call, email, fax, or write to us as follows:

Privacy Officer
American Principle Bank
4051 Broad Street
Suite 140
San Luis Obispo, CA.  93401
(805) 547 – 2800 main switchboard
(805) 547 – 2801 facsimile
privacy@americanprinciplebank.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROCEDURES FOR OPENING A NEW ACCOUNT

To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, Federal law requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account.

What this means for you:  When you open an account, we will ask for your name, address, date of birth (for individuals), and other information that will allow us to identify you.  We may also ask to see your driver's license (for individuals) or other identifying documents.