Using Earnest means you agree to our Terms and Conditions of Use.

This is why we hope you’ll read it so you know what you’re agreeing to. It should take around 10 minutes.

Earnest Terms and Conditions of Use

Last updated: May 17, 2019

Earnest is an online service by the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (or “Metrobank.”) When you see “we” “us” or “our” in this document, it means Metrobank.

When you see the word, “you,” it means you, the user or anyone who is legally authorized to represent you.

By using Earnest, you represent that you are at least eighteen (18) years old and capable of managing your own affairs.

Being owned and operated by a Philippine company, Earnest, including its Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, is governed by Philippine laws and regulations. Disputes will be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Makati City courts.

As a user, you can use Earnest to:

• Join and interact with its online community so you can learn and discuss about finance, investing, and other money matters.
• Access and rate its financial education and literacy materials.
• Give your feedback on its various features.

These will be referred to as “products” in this document. We will inform you in case we change products being offered through Earnest.

Access to Earnest

When we say “Access to Earnest,” we mean your going on Earnest and logging in.

You are responsible for the security of the credentials (i.e. your user ID and password) you use to access Earnest.

If Earnest receives a login with your credentials, it will grant access to your account as well as the products on Earnest.

Any transaction made using your account, credentials, and with valid access is considered final, valid, and binding against you, even without your actual or wet signature.

There may be times where Earnest or certain features will be unavailable because of the following reasons:

• System maintenance
• Transaction cut-off times
• Electrical failure
• Other causes outside our control

Furthermore, we will not be liable for losses or damages in connection with your use of Earnest in the following scenarios:

• The loss or damage is caused by a delay, disruption, or failure in your access to Earnest because of things Metrobank can’t control such as:
  • Prolonged power outages
  • Problems due to hardware or software (including viruses and bugs)
  • System-related issues (e.g. incompatibility, upgrade errors in the system)
  • Breakdown in telecommunication facilities
  • Fires, typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and other calamities
  • War, terrorism, revolution, riot, civil or military disorder
  • Strike, lockout or other industrial action
  • Acts of the government and other similar acts
• Somebody commits improper, fraudulent, or unauthorized actions or transactions because your device(s) was/were stolen.
• Somebody uses your user ID and password, and PIN, whether you gave it to them or not.
• The loss or damage is caused by inaccurate, incomplete, or delayed information due to disruption or system failure.
• Other causes that prevent us from doing our obligations to you.

Security and Confidentiality

We will do everything we can to ensure that Earnest is secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized third parties. However, we can’t guarantee that Earnest will always be free from viruses or other security risks.

Likewise, we will exert reasonable efforts to make sure that your information and use of Earnest remain confidential except when we are required to disclose by law or existing regulations.

Personal Data

Using Earnest will require you to give certain information and data about yourself. In respecting your data privacy rights, you can read what we use your data for and how we handle your data on our Privacy Policy.

You agree to earnest’s Privacy Policy as well all other policies related to Data Privacy and Information Security and all amendments to them.

Propriety Interest

We own all rights, title and interest arising from or in connection with Earnest.

What this means is you are not allowed to do the following to Earnest:

• Disassemble
• Decompile
• Copy
• Modify
• Reverse-engineer

Doing or allowing anyone to do any of the above is a violation of our proprietary interest.

Records

You have to make sure that all information you provide to us is complete and accurate. We encourage you to check your transaction records and/or access to Earnest. Please let us know immediately if there is any error or questionable transaction or access to your Earnest account.

Termination and Suspension

There are cases when we can immediately suspend your Earnest account or even ban you from Earnest without prior notice. They are:

• If you violate this Terms and Conditions or any other agreement with Metrobank
• If your Earnest account have been inactive for more than 1 year.
• If it is needed to protect you, other users, and our system from harm, be it in the form of a denial of service attack, viruses, or malicious codes.
• If we are required to by a law, a regulatory body, a competent court of law, or own internal policies and procedures.
• If we become aware that you have passed on, have become bankrupt, or legally incapacitated.
• If by our sole and reasonable judgment, allowing you to access Earnest is not in our best interest or would expose us to certain legal, reputational or financial risk.

Amendment

We can amend (this means edit or add to) earnest’s Terms and Conditions and/or Privacy Policy. If we do, we will inform you by posting about it on the Earnest website (www.beearnest.com) or by sending you an email to the email address you provide. Please make sure that your email address and contact details with us are up-to-date.

Continuing to use Earnest even after the Terms and Conditions and/or the Privacy Policy is/are updated means you accept them.

Contacting Team Earnest

If you would like to report any unauthorized transactions or errors or if you would like to communicate your complaints or concerns, please email us at info@be-earnest.com.

By contacting us, you agree to cooperate and give information for use in investigation and resolving complaints if needed.

A note from Earnest:

Earnest is committed to protecting your personal data and upholding your privacy. This means being transparent about the what we do with your personal data, and why we do it. We will also list down how we use your personal data, but with your explicit consent.

Earnest Data and Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 21, 2019

In summary

Your data is protected both by law and the data policies of the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (or “Metrobank”), of which Earnest is one of the online services it offers

You are always in full control of your data. This means you get to choose what data Earnest receives. Some features of Earnest will require certain types of data.

What data Earnest collects from you:

• Your personal details (e.g. your full name, your date of birth)
• Your personal circumstances (e.g. the city where you live, your occupation)
• Your account details (e.g. your email address, your mobile number, your bank account number)
• Your behavior on the platform (e.g. what parts of the platform you use most, your ratings on the platform)

Why Earnest collects and stores your data:

1. To keep your account safe
   

   Earnest uses data like your Full name and date of birth to validate your identity and so that only you have access to your account. This also helps us protect your account from fraud.

2. To keep you informed
   

   Earnest uses data like your email address and mobile number so we can send you important information, updates, and promotion from time to time.

3. To let you invest with ease
   

   Earnest makes investing easy by letting you do it all online. This includes letting you enroll a settlement account and making all the paperwork digital.

4. To help you find and discover products
   

   Earnest uses a combination of financial expertise and data analytics to help recommend products that are most suited to you, as well as develop new ones to help you achieve your financial goals.

How Earnest handles your data:

• Collection: We only collect data that you give voluntarily, and that means we explicitly obtain it with consent. Note that you have the responsibility of keeping your data updated, especially if there are changes.
• Storage: We will keep your data safe and secure in our system.
• Sharing: We will always keep your data confidential and intact and will never sell your data. Transactions may require your data to be shared with a third party. In this case, we will only share what data is necessary to complete the transaction and only to the third party concerned.
• Disclosure: We may disclose your data but only when ordered by law, by regulation, by a court, or by a regulatory body like the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
• Analytics:We may use your anonymized data to better understand how you use the Earnest platform. However, we will never share information that can be used to identify you without your consent.
• Deletion: If you choose to close your account(s) with Earnest, we are obligated to delete your data within 5 years afterwards.

In case of data privacy violations:

Please contact our Data Privacy Officer if you feel like your data privacy rights has been violated or if you believe your account has been tampered with.

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Your Rights Under the Data Privacy Act

Below are your specific rights under the Data Privacy Act. However, please note this does not constitute legal advice. For something more comprehensive, please visit the National Privacy Commission’s website, refer to Republic Act 10173, or consult a lawyer.

In case of data privacy violations:

• The right to know if your data is being processed or has been processed, what data is being processed, and for what purposes.
• The right to demand reasonable access to your data.
• The right to dispute and correct inaccuracies and errors in your data.
• The right to revoke, block, remove, or destroy your data if it’s proven to be incomplete, outdated, unlawfully obtained, or used for unauthorized transactions.
• The right to damages sustained from inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, false, unlawfullyobtained data as well as damages from unauthorized uses of your data.