Privacy policy

The personal information (“information”) that you entrust to us is essential to our business relationship with you. We know how valuable it is and we are committed to doing everything we can to protect it.

That is why we adopted this Privacy Policy (“Policy”), which describes our practices regarding the protection of your information and privacy. Our goal is to be transparent with you. This Policy applies to the use and disclosure of any information collected about you and to the manner in which the Bank and its subsidiaries ¹ collect such information in the course of your business relationship with them. This Policy applies for as long as we hold your information, including after the end of our business relationship.

Our Chief Privacy Officer is accountable for these practices within the Bank and its subsidiaries. If you have any questions about this Policy, you may write to confidentialite@bnc.ca

You may also contact us as indicated in Section 9 below if you have any questions.

IMPORTANT: We limit the collection of your information to what is necessary to help us provide you with good service.  

We may collect your information directly from you when you communicate or interact with us or when you update your account preferences and settings. We may also collect your information indirectly and from other sources listed below. Where required, we will obtain your consent. 

• other individuals related to your products and services 
• other financial institutions or lenders, insurers ( when we need to verify the accuracy of information provided) 
• brokers, dealers or other stakeholders in securities or other fields 
• credit reporting agencies 
• publicly available sources or records 
• regulatory bodies and self-regulatory organizations ²
• the Bank or its subsidiaries 
• program partners 
• content generated by your use of our websites and social media (comments you post) 

We use and share your information to:

1. verify your identity, update your information and verify the accuracy of the information you provide 
2. assess your financial situation and creditworthiness (made on a regular basis if you have a credit product)  
3. assess your eligibility for products and services or ensure that the advice, products and services we offer or you obtain are suitable for you 
4. establish your investor profile, your financial needs and objectives as well as your investment strategies 
5. establish, manage, administer and provide the products and services requested 
6. combine the financial information that the Bank or its subsidiaries hold about you to generate a 360-degree view of the products you currently own in order to provide you with better service (see your right to opt out in section 5.2)  
7. conduct research and data analytics to generate statistics, improve our products and services, and develop new ones 
8. personalize your customer experience, including through analytics on your profile, transactions and other information (including information collected by digital applications) in order to: 
   
   • get to know you better and understand your needs 
   • identify and personalize products, services and promotions that may be of interest to you 
     
   • provide you with better advice based on observations of your needs and preferences
     
9. promote products and services that may be of interest to you offered by the Bank, its subsidiaries or some of its partners (see your right to opt out in section 5.2)  
10. promote new features available on our mobile applications 
11. carry on our business and operations  
12. determine your eligibility for incentives (fee waivers, discounts, etc.) 
13. prevent, detect and control fraud, as well as any unauthorized or illegal activities (money laundering, cyber threats, etc.) 
14. enable due diligence of our operations in preparation for a business transaction  
15. manage risk, including credit and business risks, and comply with applicable laws and regulations 
16. communicate with you using the contact information you provided (by mail, email, text messages, phone calls, social media) 
17. use and disclose specific information where we are authorized to do so by law (see section 4). 

There are times when it is necessary to disclose your information to other parties for legitimate purposes. For example, it may be required by law, necessary to protect your interests in the event of fraud or to allow you to participate in a program with a partner or to provide services on our behalf. At all times, we are committed to limit the information to what is necessary and to obtain your consent, where required. 

We care about the integrity, security and confidentiality of your information. Under no circumstances do we sell or provide customer lists to third parties for marketing purposes.

We disclose your information to:

• the Bank and its subsidiaries, for identifying information, for compliance purposes and to facilitate the ongoing management of your accounts 
• the Bank and its subsidiaries, for your financial information, in order to generate a 360-degree view of the products you currently own in order to provide you with better service (see your right to opt out in section 5.2) 
• a party acting for you or at your request, such as a securities broker or transfer agent 
• another financial institution, lender, credit insurer or credit reporting agency 
• an insurer or agent acting for us
• a merchant, a partner through whom we offer optional products and services, a loyalty program provider, a payment system, a payment card network, a compensation or settlement system 
• a person who holds an account jointly with you or who is otherwise involved in your business relationship with us 
• third parties, if we need to disclose your personal information in the course of legal proceedings 
• a regulatory or government authority or self-regulatory organization ³ 
• a person authorized by law to obtain it 
• service providers we use to perform some functions such as printing cheques, issuing banking cards or producing investment statements. 

We select service providers with great care. All those who have access to your information sign a confidentiality agreement with us and agree to use your information only for the purposes stated in the agreement and to protect them with the same level of protection that we provide to your information.

We only use your information with your consent or as authorized by law. We obtain your consent to collect, use and disclose your personal information when: 

• you request a new product or service 
• we need to use your information for another purpose than the ones for which you have already provided your consent 
• you interact with us.  

However, we do not obtain your consent for every interaction with you. For example, if you have a mortgage with us, we may consider that you consent to be contacted for a renewal. 

In addition, we do not obtain your consent in some situations provided by law, in order to: 

• comply with a court order or other enforceable request 
• to collect a debt 
• investigate a breach of contract or law 
• prevent, stop or detect fraud. 

Your information belongs to you. Subject to legal, business or contractual requirements, you have the right to withdraw your consent for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information. We will process your request in a timely manner.  

However, some types of information are essential for us to provide you with certain products and services. If you refuse to provide it, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to establish or maintain a business relationship with you or even to offer you some of our products. For example, if you do not want to provide your Social Insurance Number (SIN), we will not be able to offer you products for which it is required, such as a registered product like an RRSP.

You can refuse that we use your information to:

1. Send you promotional offers
   
   The Bank and its subsidiaries may, from time to time, send you promotions that may be of interest to you. You may withdraw your consent to receive these promotions at any time. There may be a delay before you stop receiving our promotional offers, including those from a promotional campaign already in progress.
   
   We may, from time to time, contact you to ask if you would like to update your choice to ensure that our records are up-to-date and reflect your actual preferences.
   
   What you will continue to receive after you opt out 
   
   You will continue to receive: 
   
   
   • Prescribed notices that we are required by law to give you 
   • Service messages that we provide on account statements, at the ATM or on a trade confirmation  
   • Information about your current products and services. 
     
     
   You may also continue to receive information about our products and services verbally or in person from our representatives. Indeed, some of our representatives have a duty to advise you and will continue to provide you with this information when necessary.
   
   
2. Share your financial information between the Bank and its subsidiaries 
   
   We may share your financial information within the Bank and its subsidiaries to facilitate your relationship with us. For instance, this sharing allows us: 
   
   
   • to better serve you and to have a complete view of all the products you own within National Bank and its subsidiaries 
   • to access your financial profile more quickly during appointments 
   • to open a new account faster 
   • to verify your eligibility for discounts, promotions and selected products and services 
   • to prepare and provide you with personalized offers to avoid, among other things, offering you a product or service that you already own  
   • to analyze your financial situation from a broader perspective to ensure that we offer products and services that best meet your needs 
      

How to opt out  

You may opt out of receiving our promotional offers and having your financial information shared at any time through our Online Banking Solutions or by contacting your branch’s customer service, your investment advisor, a representative or the Customer Experience Centre. We will process your request as quickly as possible. 

You may request access to the information we hold about you, except where such access is restricted by law. 

How to access your information 

You can apply: 

• in writing to your investment advisor, to your branch or to a representative 
• directly to a Customer Experience Center’s representative  
• by sending an email through our Online Banking Solutions under the contact us section available from the help and contacts option in the top menu of your accounts overview. 

We will process your request within 30 days or within a longer period if provided for by law. You will be notified if the timeframe is longer than 30 days. 

You can and should correct inaccurate information we hold about you. The accuracy and completeness of your information is essential to our ability to provide quality service. To that end, we rely on you to help us maintain the quality of the information we hold by informing us of any changes. You must make a written request as outlined in Section 9. We will respond to your request within the same time period as set out in section 5.3 above.

We retain your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which the information was collected or for longer periods as required or authorized by law. If you cease to do business with us, your information will be retained by the Bank and its subsidiaries for a reasonable period of time following the end of the business relationship to meet their legal obligations.  

When your information is no longer needed, we use reasonable efforts to securely destroy it. 

The Bank, its subsidiaries, service providers and other third parties to whom your information is disclosed under this Policy may operate outside Quebec and Canada. Your information may therefore be used and stored securely in other provinces and countries. In some cases, your information may be subject to the laws and access rights of authorities in foreign countries, including the United States. For more information about our practices, we invite you to consult our Privacy Booklet available at nbc.ca.

We make significant efforts to protect your information from loss, theft, and unauthorized access, use or disclosure and from any other breach of security. We have a security program in place to keep pace with changing information security threats. The measures adopted in our security program include: 

• Protecting the infrastructure through secure access to our premises and secure locations for our equipment, etc. 
• Limiting who has access to your information. This means that only employees who need to know your information in order to carry out their duties have access to it. 
• Manage passwords and set up firewalls. 

You have a role to play in protecting your information. We encourage you to never disclose your passwords, codes and personal identification numbers (PIN). Our employees do not have this information and will not ask you for it. Avoid sending any personal information via email. We invite you to visit the ABCs of security at nbc.ca. 

This Policy is supplemented by our Cookie Policy, available at nbc.ca. It describes how we handle the information collected when you use our online services as well as our online advertising practices. 

Some products and services have specific terms and conditions governing the processing of information. It is important to take this into account. 

If you do business with, or your data is collected by, one of our facilities or subsidiaries located in the European Union, you have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with respect to the processing of your information. This Policy does not limit in any way your rights under the GDPR.  

A detailed statement about your rights and the use of your information will be provided to you at the time of collection. It is also available upon request. 

We may change this Policy from time to time. You will be notified by a notice posted on our website and by any other appropriate means to reach you. If we make a material change to our Policy, you will receive a specific notice or see it posted in our branches.

You can contact us in the following ways:  

• reach out to the customer service manager of your branch 
• reach out to your investment advisor or representative  
• by writing to us at confidentiality@nbc.ca 
• by writing to our Chief Privacy Officer, whose contact information appears at the beginning of this document. 

To make a complaint, you must follow the procedures outlined in our complaint resolution brochure, available in branches and on our website at nbc.ca, under About us > Our organization > Complaint settlement.