Privacy Policy

Opes Advisors is committed to protecting the privacy of client information and to establishing trusting relationships based on respect for personal identity and information.

Opes Advisors, Inc. (“Opes”), maintains physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal and state laws and standards to protect its clients’ nonpublic personal information (“information”). Through this policy and its underlying procedures, Opes attempts to secure the confidentiality of customer records and information and protect against anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of customer records and information.

How Opes Advisors Protects Information

Opes limits access to personal information to only authorized staff and approved vendors.
Opes restricts access to all current and former clients’ information (i.e., information and records pertaining to personal background, investment objectives, financial situation, tax information/returns, investment holdings, account numbers, account balances, etc.) to those employees and affiliated/nonaffiliated entities who need to know that information in order to provide products or services to the client.
Opes requires all employees to sign receipt and promise to comply with this policy.
Opes permits only authorized employees and affiliates who have signed a copy of Opes’s Privacy Policy to have access to client information. Employees violating Opes’ Privacy Policy will be subject to Opes’ disciplinary process. Additionally, whenever Opes hires other organizations to provide services to Opes’ clients that requires the disclosure of confidential information, Opes will require them to sign confidentiality agreements and/or the Privacy Policy.

How Opes Advisors Collects and Uses Information

There are situations in the lending process that require the sharing of information but it is done to accommodate individual credit requests with full knowledge and consent of our borrowers, for instance:

With companies involved in the loan process such as appraisers or title companies.
With service providers that assist us with processes or functions.
With investors to whom we sell the loan.
As required to comply with laws regarding government reporting and other regulatory requirements.

In the mortgage process, Opes collects and uses a borrower's personal information to evaluate requests for mortgage credit. This information is typically gathered over the phone, in person, or from the Internet as a part of the Opes lead development and loan application processes. Certain personal information Opes collects about borrowers may be publicly available in government records, credit agency databases, telephone books and/or the Internet. However, Opes treats all information as non-public and we maintain that information securely for only our use in helping customers.

For investment management clients, Opes may disclose the client’s information if Opes is:

Previously authorized to disclose the information to individuals and/or entities not affiliated with Opes, including, but not limited to the client’s other professional advisors and/or service providers (i.e., attorney, accountant, insurance agent, broker-dealer, investment adviser, account custodian, etc.);
Required to do so by judicial or regulatory process; or
Otherwise permitted to do so in accordance with the parameters of applicable federal and/or state privacy regulations. The disclosure of information contained in any document completed by the client for processing and/or transmittal by Opes in order to facilitate the commencement/ continuation/termination of a business relationship between the client and a nonaffiliated third party service provider (i.e., broker-dealer, investment adviser, account custodian, insurance company, etc.), including information contained in any document completed and/or executed by the client for Opes (i.e., advisory agreement, client information form, etc.), shall be deemed as having been automatically authorized by the client with respect to the corresponding nonaffiliated third party service provider.

Record Retention and Reporting Policy

Federal and state agencies require that Opes provide aggregated demographic and loan funding information about our loan applicants. We maintain electronic and hardcopy loan application information for closed, cancelled and denied loans for a period of three years in accordance with federal and state laws.

Investment Management documents are maintained electronically and physically for five years in accordance with SEC regulations.

EMAIL
Opes does not share, rent or sell client, partner or prospect email addresses with third party marketers or partners, nor do we plan to do so in the future. Opes email marketing adheres to all federal and state email laws and recipients may opt-out (unsubscribe) from receiving these emails at any time.

Secure Website

Eavesdropping and Impersonation are the primary security risks associated with transmitting data over the internet. Opes uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to mitigate these risks. This equipment is standard with current versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape and AOL.

SSL server authentication allows the browser to confirm a server's identity. Using standard techniques of public-key cryptography, it checks that the server's certificate and public ID are valid and have been issued by a certificate authority (CA) listed in the browser's list of trusted CA's. An SSL connection encrypts all information sent between a borrower's browser and the Opes server. This provides an extremely high degree of confidentiality. In addition, all data sent over an encrypted SSL connection is protected with a mechanism for detecting tampering – that is, for automatically determining whether the data has been altered in transit.

Availability and Changes to our Privacy Policy