Privacy Practices

Last Updated: November 20, 2024

Protecting your privacy

Protecting your privacy, along with your financial assets, is at the core of our business. You have chosen to do business with us, and we recognize our obligation to keep the information you provide to us secure and confidential. This Privacy Policy explains how AgTrust Farm Credit (“AgTrust”, “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and discloses your personal and financial information.

This Privacy Policy and our California Privacy Policy are both incorporated into our Terms of Use, available here.

What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy applies to AgTrustACA.com and all related websites and subdomains related to our financial products and services (our “Website”) and mobile or text messaging between you and us and for which you have you have provided express written consent. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the information practices of any third party whose website may be accessible through our Website, or to any third-party websites on which we advertise.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information we collect online, including information you provide to us and information collected automatically when you visit our Website.  “Personal information” is information that identifies or that can be used to identify an individual.  Personal information does not include anonymized or deidentified information. It also does not include information publicly available in government records.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide To Us.  We collect information you provide directly to us, such as when you complete the “Contact” form, communicate with us via mobile or text messaging (i.e., SMS or MMS messaging), or apply for a loan through our Website.

Information We Collect Automatically. Like most companies, we automatically collect certain information from all visitors to our Website. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include your IP address or other unique device identifier; your web browser and operating system; the date and time of your visit; the pages from which you navigate to and from our Website or the search terms that lead you to our Website; and the pages on our Website you visit and how long you stay on each page.

Information Collected from Third Parties. In addition to information you provide to us, we may also obtain information about you from public records, market research and credit reports.

Information Collected by Third Parties.  When you visit our Website, please be aware that third parties may be able to gather information from and about you. For example, companies offering services or products through links on our Website may use “cookies” to collect and use information about you and may collect information that you submit. In these cases, those third parties will use such information in accordance with their own privacy policies.

Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to collect information about use of our website. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this site. We use the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve this site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected using Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this site, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy.

More information about Google Analytics is available here. You can opt-out of Google Analytics by downloading an add-on to your browser here.

Cookies.  Like virtually all websites, we use “cookies” and similar technologies (such as web beacons and pixels). A cookie is a small data file that is placed on your computer when you visit a website, enabling the website provider to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. We use cookies to improve your access to our Website. Cookies also help us identify the interests of visitors to our Website so we can provide more customized content. Cookies can also be used to collect general usage and aggregated statistical information.

Most browsers can be set to detect cookies and give you an opportunity to reject them. You should be aware that refusing cookies may inhibit or preclude your use of our Website. You can learn more about cookies here.

How We Handle Your Information

Security.  Keeping your financial information secure from unauthorized access, loss, or modification is one of our most important responsibilities. We value your trust and handle your information with care. We have adopted reasonable and appropriate physical, procedural, and electronic safeguards to protect your personal information.

Accuracy.  Keeping your account information accurate and up-to-date is very important. If you ever find that your account information is incomplete, inaccurate or not current, please call or write to us at the telephone number or address listed on your account statement. We will correct any erroneous information as quickly as possible.

How We Use Your Information

We may use information that you provide to us, that we collect automatically, or that we obtain from third parties for various business or commercial purposes, including:

• To respond to an inquiry from you, process a loan application, transaction, or payment, and to provide support for our financial products and services;
• To administer, operate, and improve our Website;
• To create, maintain, customize, and secure your online banking account;
• To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests;
• To trusted third-party service providers who help us provide and promote our Website and our financial products and services;
• To prevent fraud and to ensure the security of our Website, intellectual property, trade secrets, and business;
• To comply with a legal obligation, such as responding to a subpoena or a court order, or to protect our rights.
• In connection with a merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of company assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership, in which customer records containing personal information may be treated as a business asset.

Information Sharing

Farm Credit Administration (FCA) regulations generally prohibit us from disclosing your personal information your consent. We will not sell or trade your personal information to marketers or data brokers.

As allowed by FCA regulations, we may disclose personal information:

• To examiners and other authorized representatives of the Farm Credit Administration, and in connection with required reports regarding our accounts and exposures;
• To accredited representatives of a U.S. Government agency or department in connection with a legitimate law enforcement inquiry;
• Borrower information may be disclosed to any Farm Credit institution in connection with the extension or administration of credit or collection of a loan;
• Transactional information such as loans, terms, and payment history may be disclosed to any financial institution that is considering an extension of credit, or to a consumer reporting agency.
• Borrower information contained in an appraisal report may be disclosed to a state agency certifying and licensing real estate appraisers, subject to certain confidentiality requirements;
• To loan applicants, when required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

Children’s Information

Our Website is not directed to children under the age of 16 and we do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 16, either directly or via any other website or online service. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 16 has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will endeavor to delete that information from our databases.

 “Do Not Track”

“Do Not Track” (DNT) is a setting available in most web browsers setting that asks a web application to disable its tracking of an individual user. There is currently no consensus on how companies should respond to DNT signals. At this time, we do not respond to DNT signals. You can learn more about DNT here.

Changes to this Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When we do, we will also revise the “last updated” date at the top of this page. We encourage you to periodically check this page to stay informed about how we collect, use, and disclose your information.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or our data collection practices, please contact us as follows:

AgTrust Farm Credit, 5600 Clearfork Main Street, Suite 600, Fort Worth, TX 76109

privacy@agtrustaca.com

800-532-1252

Privacy Policy for California Residents

If you are a California resident, you may have certain rights with respect to how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. This Privacy Policy for California Residents supplements the information contained in our Privacy Policy and applies solely to residents of the State of California. We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA). Any terms defined in the CCPA or the CPRA have the same meaning when used in this Policy.

Information We Collect

We collect certain forms of personal information, which is information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, household, or device. Personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records.
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.

In particular, our Website has collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last 12 months:

Sources of Personal Information

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you. For example, from forms you complete or products and services you purchase.
• Indirectly from you. For example, from observing your actions on our Website.
• From third parties such as data processors, financial institutions, credit reporting agencies, data brokers.
• Public Sources. For example, from publicly available property, tax and court records

How We Use Your Personal Information

We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:

• To respond to an inquiry from you, process a loan application, transaction, or payment, and to provide support for our financial products and services;
• To administer, operate, and improve our Website;
• To create, maintain, customize, and secure your online banking account;
• To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests;
• To trusted third-party service providers who help us provide and promote our Website and our financial products and services;
• To prevent fraud and to ensure the security of our Website, intellectual property, trade secrets, and business;
• To comply with a legal obligation, such as responding to a subpoena or a court order, or to protect our rights.
• In connection with a merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of company assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership, in which customer records containing personal information may be treated as a business asset.

We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

Sharing Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information.  However, we may share your personal information by disclosing it to a third party for a business purpose and as permitted by FCA regulations.  Such disclosures occur under written contracts describing the purpose of the disclosure and requiring the recipient to maintain confidentiality and not use the information for any purpose except as allowed and necessary to perform under the contract.

In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed the following categories of personal information:

• Identifiers
• California Customer Records personal information categories
• Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law
• Commercial information
• Internet or other similar network activity
• Geolocation data
• Professional or employment-related information
• Inferences drawn from other personal information

In the preceding 12 months, we disclosed personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties:

• Service Providers
• Regulatory bodies
• Outside organizations in connection with loan processing
• Loan participant entities

Your Rights and Choices

California residents have specific rights regarding their personal information.  This section describes those rights.

Right to Know and Data Portability. You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting,  selling, or sharing that personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
• If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
  • the categories of personal information sold or shared and the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or shared; and
  • disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).

Right to Limit the Use and Disclosure. You have the right to limit the use and disclosure of any sensitive personal information collected about you.

Right to Delete.  You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will review your request to see if an exception allowing us to retain the information applies. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

• Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
• Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
• Comply with a legal obligation.
• Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

We will delete or de-identify personal information not subject to one of these exceptions from our records and will direct our service providers to take similar action with respect to any personal information furnished to such service provider.

Right to Correct. You have the right to correct inaccurate information we may have collected from you. Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will rectify any inaccuracies on our end.

Exercising Your Right Know or to Delete. To exercise your rights to know, limit, correct, or delete information described above, please submit a request by either:

• Emailing us at privacy@agtrustaca.com
• Calling 1-800-532-1252

Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know, limit, correct, or delete related to your personal information.

You may only submit a request to know, limit, correct, or delete twice within a 12-month period. Your request to know, limit, correct, or delete must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative based on information we already have on file, such as a customer number, postal or email address, or phone number.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

We will only use personal information provided in the request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make it.

Response Timing and Format.  We will confirm receipt of your request within 10 business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the 10-day timeframe, please contact us at privacy@agtrustaca.com.

We will try to respond to a verifiable request within 45 days of receiving it.  If we require more time (up to another 45 days), we will inform you of the extension in writing.

If you have an account with us, we will deliver our response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by email or postal mail, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

If we cannot comply with your request, our response will provide the reasons why.

We will not charge a fee for responding to a verifiable request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA or CPRA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA or CPRA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

Other California Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@agtrustaca.com or write us at AgTrust Farm Credit, 5600 Clearfork Main Street, Suite 600, Fort Worth, TX 76109.