Your documents, and what we do with them
You are about to hand a stranger six months of banking and a copy of your ID. Here is exactly what happens to it.
Where it goes
Documents you upload are encrypted in transit and at rest, and stored in a private bucket. Nothing is published, nothing is listed, and no link to your file exists on the public internet. There is no directory to browse and no guessable address.
We keep that storage in South Africa. That is a deliberate choice: it keeps your personal information inside the Republic rather than sending it to a data centre in Ireland or Virginia, which is the simplest way to stay the right side of POPIA’s rules on cross-border transfers.
Who sees it
Two groups, and no one else:
- Us. The people assessing and packaging your application.
- Funders we place you with. That is the service — a broker who cannot show a funder your file cannot get you funded. We tell you who we are approaching.
We do not sell your information. We do not pass it to marketing lists, lead brokers or anyone else. Nobody buys a copy of your bank statements from us, because we do not sell them.
What we ask you to do
Send documents through the application form rather than over WhatsApp or ordinary email where you can. If a file is too big, tell us and we will sort it out — do not post it to a public file-sharing link.
What we will never ask you for
If anyone asks you for any of these — whoever they say they are — stop and phone us on the number in the header.
- Your online banking password, card PIN or any one-time PIN. No lender needs these. Nobody legitimate will ask.
- Your CSD login details. Your Central Supplier Database profile is your business’s identity with government. We will ask you to download your CSD report and send us the file. We will never ask for the username and password themselves, and we would urge you not to give those to anyone who does — by email least of all.
- Your SARS eFiling login. Same principle. A downloaded tax clearance certificate or a PIN to verify it is all anybody needs.
- A payment to release funding. There is no such fee. If you are ever asked to pay something up front to unlock an approval, it is not us and it is not a real lender.
How long we keep it
Working documents are kept while your application is live, and afterwards for as long as our record-keeping obligations require, then deleted. If your application does not proceed and you would like them removed sooner, email info@tendergrowfinance.co.za and we will delete them and confirm that we have.
Most finance sites say nothing at all about any of this. We would rather you knew.
Your rights
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act you can ask what we hold, ask us to correct it, object to how we use it, or ask us to delete it. Email us and we will deal with it. You can also complain to the Information Regulator.
Being straight about the limits
We are a small brokerage, not a bank. We take this seriously and the arrangements above are real, but we are not going to put security badges on a web page and imply certifications we do not hold. If you want to know exactly how something is handled, ask us and we will tell you plainly.