Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement | Collection and Use of Your Information | Information We Collect | Information We Share | Important Information About Credit Reporting | Online Services and Privacy | Where to Find Out More | We Respect Your Privacy


Your trust is the most valuable asset of BankNewport and its affiliated companies, and we have had a long tradition of protecting your privacy. When you provide us with, or we obtain information about you and your accounts that is not publicly available, you can be certain that this information will only be used within the strictest guidelines.

We have prepared this notice to explain what types of nonpublic personal information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we may share it. In this notice we will refer to the nonpublic personal information, health information, insurance information, transactional information and/or financial information we receive, or are provided with, as “Information.” This notice covers BankNewport and other members of the BankNewport Corporate family (“OceanPoint Financial Partners”), including OceanPoint Insurance Agency, Inc., (formerly known as OceanPoint Insurance Agency, Inc., Meredith & Clarke, SmithMack & Associates, and Narragansett Underwriting Group). The use of the terms “we”, “our” and “us” applies collectively to OceanPoint Financial Partners (BankNewport and its affiliated companies, including OceanPoint Insurance Agency, Inc.). The term “Bank” applies specifically to BankNewport and the term “OceanPoint Insurance” applies specifically to OceanPoint Insurance Agency, Inc.

We use this Information within the strictest guidelines and with the primary objective of being able to:

• Provide you with the services you have requested.
• Offer you other financial and insurance products and services.
• Inform you of financial and insurance services made available by our carefully selected marketing partners.

This notice applies only to Information obtained by us in connection with financial and insurance products and services used primarily for personal, family or household purposes (and not business purposes). This notice takes precedence over any previous privacy policy issued by us.

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Collection and Use of Your Information
Most of the Information we collect is used for only one purpose: to help deliver the services you have requested, easily and efficiently. It also may permit us to design and offer specific products and services that will be useful to you. We limit the collection, use and retention of your Information to comply with regulatory requirements, provide you with the best possible customer service and make other products or services available to you. We do not provide Information to companies for the purpose of independent telemarketing, Internet marketing or direct mail marketing of any products or services of those companies.

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Information We Collect
We collect Information about you from the following sources:

• Information we receive from you on applications and other forms, such as your identification information, address, e-mail address, your income, health or medical information on life insurance applications, employment information or accounts you hold at other financial institutions.
• Information about your transactions with us, such as account balances and your account usage. We also collect Information about your transactions with our affiliates or other persons who are not members of our corporate family (“non-affiliates”); and
• Information we receive from a consumer-reporting agency (e.g., credit bureaus and others) such as your payment history and credit worthiness.

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Information We Share
OceanPoint Insurance does not disclose nonpublic personal health information about its customers or former customers to anyone, including the Bank, except as required or permitted by law. For example, if you complete an application for life insurance, the medical and health information you provide to OceanPoint Insurance on the application/authorization form is disclosed only to the insurance company provider.

We may share with our affiliates Information regarding our customers, such as name and address, or as permitted by law. Information shared with our affiliates is not used for the marketing or solicitation of products or services. We do not share “eligibility” information with our affiliates, such as, but not limited to, information relating to your creditworthiness or credit standing. We do not disclose any Information about our former customers to anyone, including our affiliates, except as permitted by law.

We may disclose Information received from you on applications and other forms as permitted by law, such as your name, address, and e-mail address, to non-affiliated companies that perform marketing services on our behalf with regard to our own products or services. We may disclose Information about you to other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing or outside service provider arrangements as follows:

• Joint Marketing Providers: From time to time, we carefully select joint marketing providers to offer you specialized financial services, such as mortgage life insurance and credit cards. Although these providers are not affiliated with us, they work closely with us to help meet certain financial needs. If appropriate, we may disclose to these providers Information received from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, and e-mail address, as well as information about your transactions with us such as account opening dates, balances, and types of accounts.
• Outside service providers: At times, we enter into arrangements with non-affiliated companies or firms whose expertise is essential for our own services to function properly or to complete transactions. For example, we may work with specialized firms that enable online banking, print checks or generate account statements for our customers. As permitted by law, we disclose to these service providers the customer Information that is necessary to perform these functions.

These marketing companies and outside service providers are required by us to safeguard the confidentiality of your Information and use it only for authorized purposes. As a condition of doing business with us, we require these marketing companies and outside service providers to agree to preserve the confidentiality of the Information we disclose to them to carry out the service we have contracted and not to disclose such Information or otherwise use it for a purpose other than what was contracted.

We may disclose the Information we collect about you to other non-affiliates, as permitted or required by law. For example, certain federal or state laws may require us to disclose Information about you if you are involved in litigation with a third party or to a third party to protect against or prevent fraud. In such circumstances only the specific Information required by law, subpoena or a court order will be disclosed. As permitted by law, we also disclose Information to consumer reporting agencies, our regulators and our auditors.

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Important Information About Credit Reporting
We may report Information about your account to credit bureaus. Late payments, missed payments, or other defaults on your account may be reflected in your credit report.

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Online Services and Privacy
You can visit our websites and learn about our products and services without providing any Information about yourself. If you have signed an authorization agreement to use the Bank’s website for Internet banking services, we will retain your user ID and password so that we can recognize you as an authorized user of the website. When you engage in Internet banking transactions with the Bank on our website, we maintain all information relating to your activities and transactions. We use a secure website, pass codes and special encryption technology to protect your Information from interception by unauthorized third parties.

We do not communicate with our Internet banking customers about their specific Internet banking transactions via e-mail. We may, from time to time, respond via e-mail to inquiries from such Internet banking customers about other matters but we do not discuss or include nonpublic personal financial information in those responses without our customers’ authorization. We encourage our customers not to communicate any Information via e-mail to us, as e-mail is not secure.

From time to time, we may send via e-mail to our customers information about our existing or new products or services. If you do not want to receive this information from us, you may request at any time that we not send any more information of this type via e-mail to you.

Where to Find Out More
If you have questions or comments about our privacy practices or the way your Information is maintained and used, we would like to hear from you. Please write to us at P.O. Box 450, Newport, Rhode Island 02840, Attention: Privacy Officer.

We Respect Your Privacy
We restrict access to your nonpublic personal information to our employees, agents or other similar persons who need to know that Information to provide products and services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal and other applicable standards to guard your nonpublic personal information. Your trust is important to us. We are committed to protecting your privacy, whether you do business with us in person, online, by telephone or mail.

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