This Privacy Policy has been updated effective January 3, 2022.
At Orka Finance Inc., your privacy is very important to us. This online Orka Privacy Policy (“Policy”) applies to the collection of data by Orka Finance Inc., its successors, assignees and affiliates (collectively “Orka,” “we,” “us” or “our”) via Orka’s website portal, through Orka’s solar loan program(s), including financial products offered by Orka or third-party lending partners and other related financial services products, through Orka’s dealer partner program(s), and via prospective employment applications (collectively, “Services”). If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Orka at support@orkafinance.com.
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) applies to data collected by Orka Finance Inc. (collectively with its subsidiaries and affiliates, “Orka,” “Us,” Our” or We”), a provider of business loan products and related services (collectively “Services”). The Policy has two parts:
This Privacy Policy describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update such information. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information that personally identifies you, including your contact information, IP address, and loan application information. A large portion of the Personal Information we collect, use, share, and store is sensitive in nature, including your social security number and financial account information (“Sensitive Personal Information”).
We collect the following information from you:
In addition to collecting information via our Website and Mobile App, we may also conduct a site visit to collect information, and obtain information and external data used by lenders to process applications and complete and manage transactions, e.g., from credit reporting agencies and other vendors, as well as from social media. Once you are an Orka customer, we may reach out to you for, or otherwise obtain, information as needed to provide the Service.
* When required in the U.S., we will collect information on the beneficial owners of our business customers for purposes of verifying their identity only. The U.S. Government implemented the beneficial ownership regulation to help deter financial crimes. By complying, we are doing part in upholding the regulation to protect the financial system. Pursuant to our privacy policies and procedures, we will maintain beneficial ownership information in our system of record.
We use the information we collect to:
Orka may share your information with its affiliated or subsidiary entities for business purposes, such as financial reporting. Should you apply to one of Orka’s affiliated or subsidiary entities for a financial product or service, Orka may share your application status, borrowing history, and loan performance.
Orka will share your Personal Information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy and as required by law. Neither Orka (or any of its affiliated or subsidiary entities) will sell your Personal Information to third parties.
We will provide your Personal Information, which may include application information or bank account information, to our trusted business partners, third party lenders of Orka products, service providers, and subsidiaries and affiliates to provide financing and/or to provide services to help us with our business activities, such as offering customer service, processing credit checks or secure data storage, and other similar services. These companies are authorized to use your Personal Information only as necessary to provide these types of services to us. In addition, we may share your basic information (name, company name, phone number, email address and requested loan amount) with one of our business partners to market their services to you, provided, however, if you do not want us to share your Personal Information in these circumstances with these business partners, please contact us to opt out by email at optout@orkafinance.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below. In addition, we may also share General Information for the same reasons as we provide Personal Information and for business partners and others to conduct analyses and research and track marketing performance or as otherwise provided in the Tracking Technologies part herein.
You understand and expressly authorize Orka to use Plaid, Inc. ("Plaid") to verify your bank account and confirm your bank account balance prior to approving a transaction or any payments. Information shared with Plaid is treated by Plaid in accordance with its Privacy Policy, available at https://plaid.com/legal/#end-user-privacy-policy.
Some of our pages utilize framing or white-labeling techniques to serve content from our partners while preserving the look and feel of our Website. For example, our Careers page utilizes white-labeling techniques. Please be aware that in these instances you are providing your Personal Information to these third parties and not to Orka.
We may also disclose your Personal Information:
User Access and Choice
If your Personal Information changes, or if you no longer desire our Service, you may correct, update, amend, delete/remove, ask to have it removed from a public forum or testimonial on our Website or deactivate it by emailing optout@orkafinance.com or by contacting us by postal mail at the contact information listed below. We will respond to your request within 30 days.
We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as long as reasonably useful for commercial purposes. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
Opt-Out Policy
Orka and our business partners may contact you to offer you products and services that may be of interest to you. Out of respect for your privacy, you may choose to stop receiving our newsletter or marketing emails, telephone solicitations or other forms of contact from Orka and our trusted business partners by following the unsubscribe instructions included in these emails, accessing the email preferences in your account settings page or by contacting us by email at optout@orkafinance.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below.
Tracking Technologies
Orka and our partners (for example, our marketing partners), affiliates, or analytics or service providers, including our live chat, marketing trackers, and survey tool service providers use cookies or similar technologies. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the Website, tracking users’ movements around the Website and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis.
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies for user authentication and analytics. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our Website, but your ability to use some features or areas of our Website may be limited. If you would like to learn more about cookies or how to configure your browser, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
Log Files
As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve services we offer you and to improve marketing, analytics, and Website functionality.
Behavioral Advertising/Re-Targeting
We partner with third parties to display advertising on our Website and manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partners may use technologies such as cookies to gather information about your activities on this Website and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking optout@orkafinance.com. Please note this does not opt you out of being served non-targeted advertisements. You will continue to receive generic advertisements.
Security of Information
Orka takes the security of your information very seriously. Your information is securely sent to Orka with 128 bit-encryption over the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. This creates an encrypted connection between your browser and our servers. Thus, when you enter Sensitive Personal Information (such as a bank account number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at support@orkafinance.com.
If you allow Orka to see your banking information online rather than in paper form, it is on a read-only basis. We do not have access to change, edit, or modify bank account information in any way. Orka employees cannot view your banking username and passwords.
Additional Information
Links to 3rd Party Sites
Our Website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Orka, including the websites of our affiliated and subsidiary entities. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.
Blog/Forum
Our Website offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of your Personal Information from our blog or community forum, contact us by email at optout@orkafinance.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your Personal Information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.
Testimonials
We display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our Website in addition to other endorsements. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us by email at optout@orkafinance.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below.
Social Media Widgets
Our Website includes social media features, such as the Facebook “Like” button. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by email or by means of a notice on this Website prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.
Contact Information
General Queries: If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this Website, or your dealings with this Website, please contact us by email optout@orkafinance.com or with a letter by postal mail to:
ORKA Finance, Inc
548 Market St, #66698
San Francisco, CA 94104
To opt-out of marketing communications: please use one of the communication methods below, and include your full name and business mailing, email addresses and account number. Once we locate your contact information based on the information you provide us, it will be removed from our databases and mailings lists.
ORKA Finance, Inc
548 Market St, #66698
San Francisco, CA 94104
If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request.
Orka Privacy Policy Part 2: California Supplement:
CCPA Policy
Information We Collect
We collect the following categories of information from you, which may include the following:
We use this information to identify you, process your application and access your personal credit bureau report, if you are a guarantor or business owner.
We use this information to identify you, process your application and access your personal credit bureau report, if you are a guarantor or business owner.
We use this information to confirm your identity and that you are old enough to enter into a loan contract.
We may consider this information when processing your application.
We use this information to analyze the use of our website and for fraud screening.
We collect this information for fraud prevention purposes.
Interactions with Orka sales staff, underwriters and customer service agents are recorded for monitoring and training purposes.
We may use this when underwriting our loans.
This information may be used for credit and fraud analysis and to target future offers.
Personal information does not include:
We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:
Use of Information:
We use the information we collect to:
Sharing Personal Information
Orka may share your information with its affiliated or subsidiary entities for business purposes, such as financial reporting. Should you apply to Orka or its affiliated entities for a financial product or service, Orka may share your application status, borrowing history, and loan performance. Orka will share your Personal Information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy and as required by law. We do not sell your Personal Information to third parties.
We will provide your Personal Information, which may include application or bank account information, to our trusted business partners, third party lenders of Orka products, service providers, and subsidiaries and affiliates to provide financing and/or to provide services to help us with our business activities, such as offering customer service, processing credit checks or secure data storage, and other similar services. These companies are authorized to use your Personal Information only as necessary to provide these types of services to us. In addition, we may share your basic information (name, company name, phone number, email address and requested loan amount) with one of our business partners to market their services to you, provided, however, if you do not want us to share your Personal Information in these circumstances with these business partners you can opt out at the email or mailing address provided in Orka’s Privacy Policy Part 1, which precedes this policy. In addition, we may also share General Information for the same reasons as we provide Personal Information and for business partners and others to conduct analyses and research and track marketing performance or as otherwise provided in the Tracking Technologies part herein.
You understand and expressly authorize Orka to use Plaid, Inc. ("Plaid") to verify your bank account and confirm your bank account balance prior to approving a transaction or any payments. Information shared with Plaid is treated by Plaid in accordance with its Privacy Policy, available at https://plaid.com/legal/#end-user-privacy-policy.
Some of our pages utilize framing or white-labeling techniques to serve content from our partners while preserving the look and feel of our Website. For example, our Careers page utilizes white-labeling techniques. Please be aware that in these instances you are providing your Personal Information to these third parties and not to Orka.
We may also disclose your Personal Information:
We may have disclosed personal information for a business purpose from each of the categories listed previously where we collect information.
Sale of Personal Information
We do not sell personal information.
Your Rights and Choices
The CCPA provides consumers, including owners/guarantors of small business loans (California residents), with specific rights regarding their personal information. Orka is providing these rights to California consumer residents who have provided their personal information as part of an Orka application or loan. This section describes the CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.
Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights:
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 and confirm your verifiable consumer request (“Request”), we will disclose to you:
Deletion Request Rights:
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 and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
Exceptions
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:
Exercising Access. Data Portability and Deletion Rights
To exercise the access, data portability and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable request to us by one of these methods:
Only you or a person registered with the California Secretary of State or other state agency that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a Request related to your personal information.
You may only make a Request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The Request must:
We can’t respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we are unable to verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information as it relates to you. Making a Request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a Request to verify your identity or authority to make the request.
Response Timing and Format
We endeavor to respond to a Request in writing within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will cover the 12-month period preceding the receipt of the Request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we can’t comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide the information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.
We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your Request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.
Non-Discrimination
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not, because you have exercised rights under the CCPA:
Changes to Our CCPA Privacy Notice
We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will notify you by email or through a notice on our website homepage.
