Privacy Policy

We protect your privacy

This privacy policy was last updated on 26 January 2024.

Merwealth Limited we want you to be given the opportunity to understand how we use your personal information and to be confident that this information is safe and secure.  This privacy policy explains why we collect your information, how we use it, your rights and choices and the steps we take to keep it secure and confidential.

We keep our privacy policy under review and we recommend you check it regularly.

Using your information

Merwealth Limited offers a wide range of services and we collect and hold personal information that identifies clients, intermediaries, suppliers and other third parties linked to our clients.   The types and amount of information we collect differs depending on your relationship with us.  We only collect the data we need in order to provide the services you have asked for, or that we need in order to fulfil our legal or regulatory obligations in relation to those services.  If we need to collect additional information we will explain why we need it. You are not obliged to provide any of the information we ask you for, but if you choose not to we may be unable to provide you with services or respond to your enquiries. When you enquire about our services and when you have appointed Merwealth Limited to provide services, your personal information may be used for:

  • Responding to enquiries, offering services, and agreeing terms of business
  • Communicating with you about the services you have asked us to provide and informing you of changes that affect those services
  • Providing one or more services offered by us and our group in compliance with commercial policies.
  • Providing services with third parties related to the purpose of the agreement between the parties.
  • For all legal, commercial and administrative activities in relation to the commercial agreement;
  • Preventing financial crime, evasion of tax, and the funding of terrorism
  • Identifying politically or commercially exposed persons, or those with a significant exposure to the media
  • FATCA/CRS reporting

There are occasions where it is in our legitimate interests to collect and process your information, for example:

  • When we are considering adding new businesses to the Merwealth LimitedGroup we carry out stringent checks to ensure the business, its staff and its client base fits the Merwealth Limited culture and ethos.  By doing so, we protect our existing business and ensure we are able to continue providing the high quality services you expect from us.
  • When you ask us to provide services we need to assess the risks associated with providing that service. This will involve us using information we already hold and information from background checks and credit reference checks to evaluate the risks to you, to Merwealth Limited, and to any organisations whose products or services we are providing for you.
  • Analysing details of the number of visits to our website and the pages visitors view allows us to update and improve it. This allows us to refine the site and make your visits to our website more interesting and informative.
  • To make you aware of additional or new services that we feel could be of benefit to you and will complement the services we already provide.

In some circumstances we cannot process your data without your explicit consent, such as when your physical or mental capacity for decision making needs to be assessed.  If we ask you to provide sensitive information we will fully explain your options before we ask you to provide it.  

Sharing your information within the Merwealth Limited:

We share your information with other companies where it is necessary in order for us to provide you with services or to allow our company boards to have full oversight of our operations.  

To enable Merwealth Limited to operate on a global scale, some of our business functions have been amalgamated at group level to provide centres of excellence, allowing our expert staff to provide a high quality, streamlined service.  These specialist functions include Client Accounting, Group Risk Management, Data Protection, Finance, Marketing and Corporate Communications.  In addition, some specialist services that support our business are also centralised, such as IT, Project Management, and Internal Audit.

Wherever possible, information provided for Group functions is anonymised, for example, where statistical information is shared to meet group reporting and governance requirements.  There are, however, times where we cannot provide the relevant services without using some personal information. In these cases access is only granted to employees who need it in order to provide those services, and the amount of information shared is limited to the minimum that will allow them to fulfil their functions.

Sharing your information with other organisations

In the usual course of our business, we use third party organisations to support the essential delivery of our services.  Under these circumstances Merwealth Limited remains responsible for the security and privacy of your information and we regularly review all third parties’ security measures to ensure they meet the same standards you expect from Merwealth Limited.  All third party organisations operate under contracts that restrict their use of your personal information to providing the services we have employed them for.

In some cases, your personal information will be shared with organisations outside Merwealth Limited in order to obtain specialist or professional services that are necessary for the services we provide.  These include:

  • Your professional advisers, such as accountants, lawyers, agents, architects
  • Banks or other financial institutions
  • Credit reference agencies who assist us in meeting our customer due diligence obligations

These external organisations have a legal obligation to comply with privacy and data protection legislation and may also operate under a professional duty of confidentiality due to the type of service they provide.  They have their own privacy policies that provide information about how they use your information.

Transferring your information to other countries

When we share your information with organisations that are located in different jurisdictions, we ensure they apply equivalent levels of protection.    Countries in the European Economic Area and those that are recognised as providing adequate protection by the European Commission are considered to be secure.  Personal information can flow freely between those countries because they provide equivalent levels of protection and their laws give you the same rights and protections in relation to your personal data.

For other international transfers we put data sharing contracts in place to ensure you retain the same rights and protections in the recipient country as you have in the country where your information was originally collected.  This ensures that such transfers are legal and gives you, and Merwealth Limited, the reassurance of knowing that your privacy rights remain the same wherever your information is being processed.

Using your contact details

From time to time, we will send you important notices about the products or services you have asked us to provide, changes to our policies or terms and conditions, or changes to laws or regulations that could affect the service we provide.  This is important information that keeps you informed about the products or services you have asked us to provide.

We may also send you emails containing newsletters and articles, information about additional products or services provided by Merwealth Limited, or invitations to events we are organising, attending or sponsoring.  You can opt-out of receiving these messages by clicking on the unsubscribe link in those emails.

We never sell or lease your personal information or share it with other organisations outside Merwealth Limited for marketing purposes.

Storing and deleting your information

The amount of time we keep your personal information will vary depending on your relationship with Merwealth Limited.  In some circumstances, there is a legal or regulatory requirement to keep information for a specific amount of time, although this will be extended if there is ongoing legal action that overrides the normal retention period.  Where there is no regulatory or legal requirement, we assess how long we reasonably need to keep your information in order to deal with ongoing queries.

When our relationship with you ends, there will be information we cannot delete immediately. Such information will be stored in our physical and/or electronic archives until we no longer have an obligation to keep them.  At that point the information will be permanently deleted.

Keeping your information secure

We take the security of personal information and confidential documents extremely seriously.  Merwealth Limited complies with data protection legislation in the jurisdictions in which we operate and we have put in place appropriate safeguards to prevent unauthorised access or unlawful use of confidential information. 

We restrict access to personal information to Merwealth Limited employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us.  They are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and they may be disciplined or their contract terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.

Your rights

Subject to some exceptions, you have the right to: 

  • know whether Merwealth Limitedis processing your personal information
  • request a copy of the personal information Merwealth Limitedholds about you
  • have any inaccuracies corrected or and have incomplete personal data completed
  • have your personal data erased if it is no longer needed
  • ask Merwealth Limitedto restrict the processing of your data
  • object to Merwealth Limitedprocessing your data
  • ask for your data to be transferred to a new service provider
  • object to processing that is carried out in Merwealth Limited’s legitimate interests
  • not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing if it produces legal effects or similarly affects you
  • make a complaint to a data protection supervisory authority or regulator.

Social Media

Merwealth Limited uses a number of social media sites including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. We receive some information about you from these sites when you interact with us or access our social media content. The amount of information we receive is governed by your social media account privacy settings and the policies and procedures of each social media platform. You can access their privacy/data policies by clicking on the following link for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Links to external sites

The Merwealth Limited website contains links to other websites which are not controlled by Merwealth Limited.  We are not responsible for the privacy of those sites, and we encourage you to review the privacy policies of each one when you visit external sites so that you understand how those other organisations are using your personal information.

Cookies

A cookie is a file which is sent to your computer or other access device when you visit a website.  The Merwealth Limited website uses cookies to analyse user activities which helps us to develop it and initiate improvements aimed at making your visits more simple and relevant.  The cookies we use do not collect personal information and they are not used to identify individuals.

To enable this website to work properly, and to provide an improved visitor experience, this website places cookies on your device.  This policy aims to explain how the Merwealth Limited website uses cookies.

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are essential because they enable the website to function correctly and make it possible for you to navigate around the site and use its features.  These cookies do not collect any personal information and without them the website may not function correctly. You may be able to disable these cookies by changing your browser settings, but some sections of the website will not function properly without them.

 

Preference cookies

Preference cookies are used to recognise you and to remember your preferences, such as your geographic location, preferred language and the subjects you’re interested in.  Our aim in using these cookies is to provide a more personalised service when you visit the website, and the information they collect is not used for any other purposes.

Statistics cookies

Statistics cookies collect some personal information and group it together with information about other visitor’s activities to help us analyse patterns of use rather than individual visitor’s activities.  This information is only used to improve our website and it is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purposes.
We use cookies of Analytics to collect information about the number of visitors to the website, when they use it, how they move around the site, and which pages are most popular.

Marketing cookies

Marketing cookies are used to build a profile of your interests in order to show you relevant adverts on this and other websites.  They also help to prevent the same adverts from continuously appearing.  They collect information that can be used to uniquely identify your browser and internet device.  If you do not consent to the use of these cookies you will still see adverts, but they may be less relevant to you.

Third-party cookies

Some of our pages contain links to third-party websites, some of which display Merwealth Limited’s content.   To view these sites, you first have to accept the third-party website owner’s specific terms and conditions, including their cookie policies, which we have no control over. You will be able to obtain a detailed analysis of the cookies used by our site by accessing a verification from the website: https://www.cookiebot.com/

Queries and complaints

This privacy policy aims to give you an overview of the ways in which we process your personal information.  If you would like more detail or have any queries, please contact us so that we can assist you.  We take any complaints we receive about the way we process your information very seriously and we would like to hear from you if you have any concerns.  Please refer to the Merwealth Limited Contacts section at the bottom of this policy for information about our locations and contact details.

Merwealth Limited Data Protection Officer

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or any other data protection issues please contact:

MERWEALTH LIMITED

9TH FLOOR, AMTEL BUILDING

148 DES VOEUX ROAD CENTRAL

HONG KONG

Email: info@merwealthltd.com