Privacy Notice Digital Lending

This Privacy Notice governs the types of Customer Information/digital personal data we collect from you through our website, mobile application customer touchpoints, sms, email, WhatsApp, LSP’s and through any other platform owned and/or operated by us (collectively referred as the “Platform”), as well as the way in which we collect, use, disclose, transfer to third parties including to our Lending Services Partners, store and protect your information.

Definitions

“Customer Information” means and includes your personal data such as, transactional data, personal identifiers, contact details, financial and commercial data, socio demographic data, contractual details, geo-location data, data about your digital journey, communication details, social relationship details, data about you taken from public records, your health data, data relating to any past or pending legal proceedings and any other information, in relation to you, and any derivative data.

“Purpose” means and includes all acts, things and deeds we do to provide various products and services that you have applied for including assessing eligibility, merits and/or suitability of products and services applied by you, conducting due diligence as per applicable laws, for co-branding and other third-party products and services, to fulfil our contractual obligations with you, maintaining record, communicating with you, performing our audits, developing, testing and analyzing our systems, products and services, conducting research and analytics, conducting identity verification security checks, for maintaining data security measures, meeting or complying our internal policies, for preventing fraud and complying with applicable law or regulation, tracing and exercising our rights and protecting ourselves against harm to our rights and interests, develop new products/services and to monitor and review products/services from time to time, for reporting in compliance with applicable law or regulation, to enable us to show you advertisements, selective offers and promotions, search results, location-based services, which are relevant to you and your interests.

Use of Customer Information

We may use the Customer Information for the Purpose and more specifically for providing various products and services applied by you and among other things; for customer verification, digital lending business, for personalization of products or services, marketing or promotion of our financial services or related products or that of our associates and affiliates; for creation of statistical information, statistical analysis or credit scoring, enforcement of your obligations, any other purpose that will help us in providing you with optimal and high quality products/services.

Security

We have taken reasonable measures to protect security and confidentiality of the Customer Information and its transmission through the World Wide Web. You are required to be bound by the terms and conditions of the product while using the Platform including the instructions stated therein in respect of security and confidentiality of your log-in and password.

The Bank will give access to Customer Information to only authorized employees and third party vendors who are bound by formal contracts with an obligation to protect the Customer Information.

Disclosure

We shall not be held liable for disclosure of the Customer Information or statistical information in accordance with this Privacy Notice or in terms of any other agreements with you. We may disclose the Customer Information to third parties for following, among other purposes, and will make reasonable efforts to bind them to obligation to keep the same secure and confidential and an obligation to use the information for the purpose for which the same is disclosed: -
- For advertising or
- For facilitating joint product promotion campaigns or
We may disclose the Customer Information, to third parties, without limitation, for the following reasons, as may be necessary and applicable;
- To comply with legal requirements, legal process, legal or regulatory directive/ instruction.
- To enforce the terms and conditions of the products or services.
- To protect or defend our rights, interests and property or that of our associates and affiliates, or that of our or our affiliate's employees, consultants etc.
- For fraud prevention purposes.
- As permitted or required by law or regulation.
- For participation in any telecommunication or electronic clearing network.
- For availing of the support services from third parties e.g. collecting subscription fees, and notifying or contacting you regarding any problem with, or the expiration of, any services availed by you.
- For the purposes of credit reporting, verification and risk management to/with clearing house centers or credit information bureau and the like.
- For the purpose of facilitating digital lending. You will find details of the third parties, Lending Service Providers, Digital Lending Apps here. Moreover, details of how such third parties, Lending Service Providers shall be managing Customer Information and sharing it onward will be found in the privacy notice/policy posted on their Platform.
- To help us in providing you with optimal and high quality products/services.

Digital Lending

These provisions shall be applicable to customers availing digital lending services from Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited. We will ensure that the personal data/digital personal data/Customer Information collected from you in this regard shall only be used for providing digital lending services and the Purpose stated above. We follow a data collection approach that is strictly need-based, gathering information only when necessary, and only when you have given explicit consent for the same.

Collection and Storage of Customer Information for Digital Lending

To facilitate your use of our digital lending services we may collect your Customer Information for the Purpose stated above.

Type of data stored – Customer Information
Time of data storage – We will store the Customer Information minimum for a period of 10 years or as long as you remain our customer for the product or the services availed by you and further for the period we are legally bound to maintain it. We may maintain the Customer Information for a longer period if the same is necessary in our legitimate interest or to defend or prosecute any legal proceedings where such information is relevant.
Restrictions on use of data – The Customer Information provided shall only be used to facilitate digital lending services to you and other specified Purpose in this Notice.
Data destruction protocol – The Customer Information will be deleted upon the time for storage of data specified above has come to an end.
Standards for handling security breach – We have implemented robust and industry-standard procedures, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, to safeguard Customer Information and uphold security. It remains your responsibility to protect the security of your personal data. Our servers are situated within secure environments, reinforced by firewalls and advanced security technologies, which effectively deter unauthorized interference or external access. These measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure appropriate data usage. Despite the reasonable security measures applied across all our digital platforms and internet connections, it is essential to acknowledge that security risks beyond our control, such as hacking, virus dissemination, force majeure events, breaches of firewall, and secure server software, may still pose potential threats. In the improbable incident of a data breach; we will take necessary and appropriate steps to mitigate the damage and to safeguard your data. Further, reporting of such incident shall be done as per the requirement of applicable laws and regulations. While the information is shared with third parties as per Purposes set out in this Notice, processing of Customer Information is governed by their policies. We ensure stricter or no less stringent privacy protection obligations are cast on these third-parties, wherever applicable and to the extent possible. We may also share Customer Information with third-parties such as legally recognized authorities, regulatory bodies, governmental authorities, and financial institutions as per Purposes set out in this Notice or as per applicable laws/regulation.
We shall ensure that no biometric data is stored/collected, unless allowed under extant statutory guidelines.
We will ensure that all Customer Information is stored only in servers located within India, while ensuring compliance with statutory obligations/regulatory instructions. Further, in case the Customer Information is processed outside India, the same shall be deleted from servers outside India and brought back to India within 24 hours of processing. In certain instances, retention of your Customer Information may also be required for combating fraud and meeting contractual commitments, in addition to meeting legal or regulatory obligations.

Collection, usage and sharing of Customer Information with us and third parties

You have an option to give or deny consent for use of specific Customer Information, restrict disclosure to third parties, data retention, revoke consent already granted to collect Customer Information and if required, make us delete/forget/update the Customer Information. This shall be done by clicking on https://www.kotak.com/en/customer-service/grievance-redressal.html. In the event you decide to restrict disclosure to third parties or withdraw your consent for processing any of the Customer Information in relation to any specific product/service/Purpose then in such event such restriction/withdrawal may impact the provision of services/products or its complete discontinuation and we shall not be liable for the same. We request you to specify the product/service for which you wish to withdraw your consent so that the provision of our other services/products you have availed from us, is not affected.
We shall keep you informed on the purpose of obtaining your consent at each stage of interface with you.
We shall seek your explicit consent before sharing Customer Information with any third party, except for cases where such sharing is required as per statutory or regulatory requirement.

Grievances

For discrepancies and grievances pertaining to processing of information, please get in touch with our Grievance Officer, details of which can be found on https://www.kotak.com/en/customer-service/grievance-redressal/personal-banking/level-2.html.

Cookie Policy

To continually enhance your online experience, we use cookies that store your preferences and give us data about your browsing behavior, such as the pages you visited on this website, how much time you spent on our site, etc. This information helps us understand customer interests and helps us improve our website. By visiting the website, you acknowledge, accept and expressly authorize us for the placement of cookies on your computer or hand held device. Please find below some more information regarding cookies and their application on our website:

What are Cookies?

A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server and only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Every cookie is unique to your particular web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name with some digits and numbers. It allows the website to remember your browsing behavior and show you relevant ads based on the browsing pattern. The cookies also allow the website to limit the number of ads shown.

How does Kotak.com use Cookies?

Kotak.com uses cookies to capture following information –

Source of visit to the website
Time spent on the website
Pages viewed on the website
Ad clicks

In addition to analyzing anonymous user behavior on Kotak.com, aforementioned data also allows us to pre-empt requirements of prospects and existing account holders (by capturing their CRN number) and pitch relevant services through display advertising or tele calling.

Please note that the scope of this tracking is limited to the kotak.com domain. User activity on other third-party websites is not tracked by Kotak.com cookies.

Further information about cookies

If you would like to learn more about cookies in general and how to manage them, visit www.aboutcookies.org.

Changes to this policy

The above may change at any time. We will endeavor to notify you of any major changes but you may wish to check it each time you visit our website.

We shall not be liable/responsible for any breach of privacy owing to your negligence. Please note that the Platform and other digital platforms may contain links to third party applications/digital platforms which are provided for your convenience. We are only responsible for the privacy practices and security of the Platform. We recommend that you check the privacy and security policies and procedures of each and every other application/digital platform that you visit.