Terms and Conditions

Welcome to the Alternative Business Funding and Funder Finder Platform.

These terms and conditions (Terms of Use), which include our Privacy Policy, govern the relationship (the Agreement) between Alternative Business Funding Limited (ABF) and the person or entity who accesses, uses, or registers to use (“you”, “your”) our website www.alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk and/or any mobile application or linked services (together the Platform).

PLEASE READ THE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY, AND IN ITS ENTIRETY, BEFORE ACCESSING, USING OR REGISTERING TO USE THE PLATFORM.

By accessing, using or registering to use the Platform: (i) you represent and warrant that you are over the age of 18 and are lawfully able to enter in and agree to the Agreement; (ii) you accept and agree to be bound by the Agreement, including as it may be updated or revised from time to time by ABF, and all other terms and policies referenced or incorporated herein by reference; and (iii) you represent and warrant that you are authorised to enter in and agree to the Agreement on behalf of any entity if you are accessing, using or registering to use the Platform on behalf of that entity.

INFORMATION ABOUT US

The website www.alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk is operated by Alternative Business Funding Limited (“we”, “us”), together with any mobile applications or linked services.

We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company with number 09044377.

Our registered office and trading address is at The Pavilions, Ham Green, Bristol BS20 0DD.

Alternative Business Funding Limited is an Appointed Representative of Clifton Compliance Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Clifton Compliance Services Limited’s FCA registration number is 480676. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (reference number ZA110766)

We are a credit broker, not a lender. With effect from 01 November 2017 we are a ‘designated finance platform’ under The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015.

CHANGES TO THESE TERMS

We may revise these Terms of Use and accordingly the Agreement governing our relationship with you at any time by amending this page. Please check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we have made, as they are binding on you.

CHANGES TO THE PLATFORM

We may update the Platform from time to time, and may change the content at any time. However, please note that any of the content on the Platform may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update it. We do not guarantee that the Platform, or any content on it, will be free from errors or omissions.

ACCESSING THE PLATFORM

The Platform is for users located in the United Kingdom. If you are not located in the United Kingdom and you access the Platform you do so at your own risk and you should be aware of applicable local laws and regulations.

The purpose of the Platform is to facilitate and provide technology for users to independently connect with finance providers and arrangers of business funding sources. The Platform is provided for business use only and is not intended for use by retail consumers.

Certain areas of the Platform may be restricted to registered users and additional terms and conditions may apply in those circumstances. Access to and use of password protected and/or secure areas of the Platform is restricted to authorised users only. Unauthorised individuals attempting to access these areas of the Platform may be subject to prosecution.

If you choose to register with the Platform you will require a username and password to access your account. Each time you access your account we will check your identify by asking for your username and password. As long as the correct username and password is entered, we will assume that you are the person giving instructions and you will be liable for them. You must therefore keep your username and password secret and make sure that they are not stored in a way that enables others who are acting without your authority to access them or impersonate you. If you disclose your username and password to any person whom you authorise to access and operate your Account on your behalf, you are also responsible and liable for any access, use, misuse or disclosure of your username and password or your account by that person.

If you choose to register for the Platform you agree that we may obtain a credit reference for you and your business, including its directors or partners from a credit reference agency.

You may be required to provide a finance provider with a personal guarantee and the finance provider will also use your personal information to run quotation searches with the credit reference agencies. These may be soft searches (which have no impact on your credit score) but a full credit search will be run if you take funding. Finance providers may also share data with fraud prevention agencies. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance, or employment.

We do not guarantee the Platform, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. Access to the Platform is permitted on a temporary basis. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of the Platform without notice. We will not be liable to you if for any reason the Platform is unavailable at any time or for any period. You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to the Platform.

You are specifically prohibited from using the Platform to defame, abuse, harass, bully, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as the rights of privacy and publicity) of others, and/or publish, post, distribute or disseminate any defamatory, infringing, obscene, pornographic, sexual, indecent or unlawful material or information, or engage in criminal behavior, or cause others to engage in any of the aforementioned conduct, or to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation.

You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access the Platform through your internet connection are aware of these Terms of Use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.

THE PLATFORM SERVICE

The Platform Service provides you with access to data on both unregulated financial products and certain credit products within the scope of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 that are advertised or otherwise displayed on the Service by the finance providers of those products. The Platform enables you to post information on the Platform about your financial requirements. We are a credit broker, not a lender. We are a ‘designated finance platform’ under The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which means that if your application for finance from a designated bank is unsuccessful, the bank must, subject to your consent, provide us with information about your application.

The platform service includes a matching process where your profile, responses to our questions and information supplied by a designated bank (where relevant) will be matched with the lending criteria of the finance providers we work with. You, as a business, can then choose to submit an enquiry for finance via the Platform and your request can be withdrawn at any time.

By submitting an enquiry for finance you agree that your business and contact information can be passed to providers of finance in order for them to contact you to discuss your requirements further.

Subject to your consent, we will provide interested finance providers with access to your finance request and the information we have obtained from the credit reference agency. This data will enable the finance provider to determine whether they are interested in offering your business the finance requested. Any negotiations between you and a finance provider will be conducted outside of the Platform, including any additional checks and information the finance provider may require about your business.

NO ADVICE, FINANCIAL PROMOTION, OFFERS OF SECURITIES

The information on the Platform is for information purposes only. You are responsible for making your own choice about whether to use the Platform and enter into an arrangement with a finance provider.

ABF does not offer financial advice and any information contained on the Platform should not be construed as financial, legal, tax or any other form of advice or recommendation. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on the Platform.

No offer of or solicitations to accept funding or purchase securities is conducted on the Platform.

Information displayed on the Platform is not intended as a financial promotion and unless expressly stated otherwise has not been approved as such by any authorised person in the United Kingdom.

We cannot guarantee our service will be successful for you, neither are we obliged to provide the Platform service to you.

CHARGES

The Platform is provided to businesses free of charge. We receive payment from finance providers for successful introductions we make to them.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in the Platform, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You must not use any part of the content on the Platform for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

Except as expressly permitted in these Terms of Use, you may not copy, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, display, or sell any content appearing on or through the Platform.

ABF and any other product or service name or slogan contained on the Platform are trademarks of ABF or its content providers, suppliers or licensors, and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of ABF or the relevant trademark owner. The look-and-feel of the various aspects of the Platform constitute a service mark, trademark and/or trade dress of ABF and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without ABF’s prior written permission.

“Alternative Business Funding” is a registered trademark of Alternative Business Funding Limited (trade mark registration numbers UK3048152 / UK3048172).

CONTENT UPLOADED TO THE PLATFORM

Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to enter, upload, post, blog or otherwise provide content to the Platform, or to make contact with other users of the Platform, you must comply with the content standards described in these Terms of Use.

By uploading, posting, blogging, or otherwise providing content to the Platform or making contact with other users, service providers or finance providers, you represent and warrant that in respect of such content that you submit to the Platform: i/ you have the legal capacity and authority to grant the rights and license set forth herein; ii/ it does not infringe any copyright, trademark, right of privacy or right of publicity or other proprietary right of any third party, or defames or casts into disrepute in any manner any third party; iii/ it does not constitute bullying, harassment, threats or otherwise the legal rights or privacy of others, or material that is obscene, pornographic, or indecent and iv/ it was not obtained in an unlawful way that can lead to civil or criminal liabilities.

We have the right to remove such information posted by you if, in our opinion, it does not comply with the standards above or our opinion of reasonable use.

You indemnify and hold us, our officers, directors, employees and agents harmless from any claims concerning or relating to content that you upload, post, blog, or otherwise provide to the Platform.

You agree that ABF and its directors, officers, employees, partners or agents shall not be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect, consequential or incidental, relating to, arising out of or in connection with the use of, or the inability to use, content that you upload, post, blog, or otherwise provide to the Platform.

Any content you upload post, blog or otherwise provide to the Platform will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but by publicly displaying or publishing (“posting”) any public content on or through our services, you hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable limited licence to use, reproduce, distribute, store, copy, translate, modify, delete, prepare derivative works of, publically display, and publically perform that user generated content in connection with the service provided by our site and services and across different media and to use the content to promote the Platform or services. Furthermore we may make your content available to third parties (for example other users, partners, or advertisers) for their purposes or in accordance with the functionality of the Platform.

We reserve the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to the Platform constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any content posted by you or any other user of the Platform.

The views expressed by other users on the Platform do not represent our views or values.

DATA PROTECTION

When you register for access to the website ABF will collect information from you. ABF will act as data controller when collecting, storing and processing personal data.

The information collected by ABF through the website will be processed for the purposes of fulfilling your requests and for communicating with you. We may use anonymised data for analysis purposes in order to identify trends and develop services we may be able to provide in the future.

By supplying ABF with the data, you confirm and guarantee that ABF has consent for the purposes of the Data Protection Act to use the data as defined above.

ABF will ensure that it processes and protects Personal Data shared by a User and received by ABF, according to any applicable data protection legislation, including but not limited to the the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000⁄2699), the Electronic Communications Data Protection Directive (2002/58/EC), the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003⁄2426), Regulation (EU) 2016⁄679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, together with any and all other laws, regulations or other statutory instruments relating to the protection of personal data applicable to ABF in any relevant jurisdiction;

ABF does not accept any liability for any breach of data protection legislation, including but not limited to the Data Protection Act 1998, by finance providers.

The information that ABF passes to finance providers is detailed in schedule 1. ABF will pass your company name and postcode to the credit reference agency in order to obtain your credit reference.

ABF will not pass any data outside of the European Economic Area. ABF is not responsible for the data protection requirements of the finance providers we work with.

LIMITATION OF OUR LIABILITY

Your access to and use of the Platform is at your sole risk. The Platform is available “as is”. If you are dissatisfied with any of the materials contained on the Platform, or with any of these terms of use, to the extent permitted by law your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue accessing and using the Platform.

There is no guarantee of the accuracy or completeness of the information on the Platform.

Nothing in these Terms of Use excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, or our fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by English law.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to the Platform or any content on it, whether express or implied.

We, our officers, directors, employees or agents, will not be liable to any user for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:

• use of, or inability to use, the Platform;
• use of or reliance on any content displayed on the Platform; or
• advice provided by third parties with links to or on the Platform.

Please note that in particular, we will not be liable for:

• loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
• business interruption;
• loss of anticipated savings;
• loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
• any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

The Platform is not for access by consumer users and accordingly we accept no liability for such use.

We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial-of-service attack, or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of the Platform or to your downloading of any content on it, or on any website linked to it.

We assume no responsibility for the content of websites linked on the Platform. Such links should not be interpreted as endorsement by us of those linked websites. We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

INDEMNITY

You agree to indemnify and hold ABF, its affiliates, and each of its respective directors, officers, employees, shareholders, partners and agents (collectively, the “ABF Parties”) harmless from and against any and all claims, liability, losses, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) incurred by any ABF Party arising out of, as a result of or in connection with any breach or alleged breach by you or anyone acting on your behalf of any term set forth in the Agreement.

VIRUSES

We do not guarantee the Platform will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform in order to access the Platform.

You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse the Platform by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Platform, the server on which the Platform is stored or any server, computer or database connected to the Platform. You must not attack the Platform via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use the Platform will cease immediately.

LINKING TO THE PLATFORM

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it or in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link to the Platform in any website that is not owned by you. The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in these Terms of Use. The Platform must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of the Platform other than the home page.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

If you wish to make any use of content on the Platform other than that set out above, please contact info@alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk .

TERMINATION

Notwithstanding anything in the Agreement, ABF reserves the right, without notice and in its sole discretion, to terminate the Agreement, your account, and/or to block your use of the Platform.

ABF reserves the right to seek all remedies available at law and in equity for violations of our Agreement with you according to these Terms of Use, including the right to block access from a particular Internet address to the Platform, or report misuses to law enforcement.

MISCELLANEOUS (LEGAL BOILERPLATE)

Nothing in these Terms of Use shall be deemed to confer any third-party rights or benefits. These Terms of Use shall be binding upon and inure to the benefit of the parties hereto and their respective heirs, successors and assigns. The titles and headings of these Terms of Use are for convenience and ease of reference only and shall not be utilised in any way to construe or interpret the Terms of Use of the parties as otherwise set forth herein. Each covenant and agreement in these Terms of Use shall be construed for all purposes to be a separate and independent covenant or agreement. If a court of competent jurisdiction holds any provision (or portion of a provision) of these Terms of Use to be illegal, invalid, or otherwise unenforceable, the remaining provisions (or portions of provisions) of these Terms of Use shall not be affected thereby and shall be found to be valid and enforceable to the fullest extent permitted by law.

APPLICABLE LAW

The Agreement between you and us according to the Terms of Use is governed by English law. You and we both agree to that the courts of England and Wales will have non-exclusive jurisdiction to settle any disputes in relation to the Agreement and these Terms of Use.

COMPLAINTS

If you wish to make a complaint about the platform you can email complaints@alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk or write to Alternative Business Funding Ltd, The Pavilions, Eden Park, Ham Green, Bristol, BS20 0DD.

A copy of our ‘Complaints Procedure’ is available at www.alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk/complaints . Your complaint will be investigated in accordance with our complaint handling procedures. If you are not happy with the way in which the investigation is carried out, or with the result, you will then be entitled to complain directly to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

CONTACT US

For all enquiries, please email: info@alternativebusinessfunding.co.uk

Thank you for visiting the Platform.

Copyright © 2019. Alternative Business Funding Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Schedule 1

When making a finance enquiry ABF will pass personal and business information onto the finance provider. Subject to your consent ABF will firstly pass anonymised information to the finance provider for their review, if the finance provider is interested in your enquiry your identifiable information will be shared with the finance provider.

This information will include:

• a credit report from a credit reference agency
• your responses to our questions
• for designated bank referrals the specified information provided by bank:
  • the name of the small or medium sized business;
  • the postal address, email address and telephone number of the business;
  • the amount of finance requested by the business (other than in relation to a request for a credit card account, unless the business has requested a credit card account with a specified limit);
  • the type of finance requested by the business (where a specific type of finance has been requested by the business);
  • the legal structure of the business (limited company, limited partnership, partnership sole trader, or other);
  • the period in years and months for which the business has been trading and receiving income;
  • the date by which the business requires finance or, if such date is not known, the date by which the business has requested finance.

Last updated 13 June 2019