Akafay Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) explains how Akafay (also referred to as “we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, and protects your Personal Data. This Notice applies to all natural persons—whether customers or merchants (“you” or “your”)—who interact with the Akafay App or use our services (collectively, the “Platform”). We are committed to safeguarding your privacy and being transparent about how we manage your Personal Data.

2. Purpose of this Notice

The purpose of this Notice is to provide insight into our privacy practices and explain the types of Personal Data we collect and process about you from various sources. This Privacy Notice covers the following:

What Personal Data we collect
How we use your Personal Data
What gives us the right to use your Personal Data
Processing of Personal Data requiring your explicit consent
Who we share your information with
Where we store your information
Payment processing details
How we protect your information
How long we retain your information
Your rights regarding your Personal Data
Changes to this Notice
How to contact us
Terms and definitions

3. What Personal Data Do We Collect?

Information You Provide to Us

When you use our Platform for example, to create an account, access our services, make a purchase using Akafay, or contact us we collect information directly from you. This may include:

Identity and contact details: your full name, email address, residential address, phone number, date of birth, and National ID.
Financial details: your bank account information.
Communications: records of our interactions, including emails, phone calls, text messages, and in-app messages, whether initiated by you or us.

Information We Receive From Others: We work with trusted third parties like retailers, business partners, advertising networks, analytics providers, and search information providers, Government entities. We may receive information about you from these sources, including:

KYC Verification: We use third-party services, such as the Ethiopian National ID (NID) system, to verify your identity. You will be asked to provide an appropriate form of government-issued identification and, in some cases, a selfie to match against your ID. Your use of this verification service is governed by the respective organization’s own terms and privacy policy.

Bank Account Details: We may collect information related to your credit behavior, installment repayment patterns, and overall transactional history. This helps us assess eligibility for financing, manage risk, and enhance the quality and reliability of our services.

Information We Collect Automatically

When you use our Platform, we automatically collect certain information to help us improve our services, enhance user experience, and ensure security. This includes:

Technical information: your IP address, login information, browser type and version, installed plug-ins, device ID and settings (e.g., language and time zone), operating system, hardware version, and your mobile operator or internet service provider (ISP).
Usage information: details about your interactions with our Platform, including the full web addresses (URLs) you visit, navigation paths to and from our site, date and time of visits, products viewed or searched for, time spent on specific pages, and actions such as scrolling, clicking, or hovering. We also collect information about how you leave a page, as well as the phone number or social media account you used to contact our customer support team.
Location data: information about your geographic location derived from GPS, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth signals. This may include precise coordinates (latitude and longitude), your country or region (determined from your IP address), and your device’s unique advertising identifier—such as Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) or the Android ID. These may be collected in combination with your device ID to help us recognize your device or browser when you return to our Platform. You can choose to opt out of location sharing at any time through your device settings.
In-App Browser Usage: data related to your activity within our in-app browser, including the URLs you visit while browsing through it.

How Do We Use Your Personal Data?

We use your Personal Data in the following ways:

When you browse our Platform:

We use automatically collected information to:

Understand how you use our Platform and identify ways to improve it.
Source of Information: Third-party service providers
Ensure content from our Platform is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device.
Provide you with the information, products, and services you request, or that we believe may interest you.
Information Collected: Advertisers may share technical information and information about your visits, including interactions with them.
Source of Information: Advertisers

When you create and use an account with us:

We use your contact details, identity information, login details, financial information, credit and verification information, and automatically collected data to:

Create and administer your account.
Verify your identity through appropriate screening processes.
Conduct credit checks and receive results from third-party credit check providers.
Verify and carry out financial transactions related to your payments on the Platform.
Provide aggregated reporting to, and manage our obligations with, shareholders, investors, and finance providers.
Identify you when signing in and grant appropriate access to the Platform, in accordance with your agreement with us.
Enforce or apply our terms or other agreements with you.
Notify you about changes to our services.

We may use profiling and automated decision-making to determine whether to verify and approve your account, including based on your credit history. If you would like more information about our automated decision-making practices or wish to request a manual review of any decision, please contact us.

When you contact or engage with us:

We use your contact details, identity, login details, financial information, credit verification, and communications information to:

Provide customer support, including troubleshooting issues, responding to your requests, and assisting with Platform-related problems.
Provide the information, products, and services you request.

For marketing and advertising purposes:

We may use your contact details, marketing preferences, and automatically collected information to:

Send promotional communications via email, SMS, in-app alerts, or phone about goods or services that may interest you.
Gather your opinions about our Platform through surveys or other market research.
Understand how you interact with our services and interests.
Provide personalized recommendations, promotional updates, and marketing to improve your experience.
Measure and understand the effectiveness of advertising and deliver relevant ads to you and others

We may conduct profiling and automated decision-making to provide you with relevant information, suggestions, and product recommendations. We do this either in our legitimate interests where we have determined that your rights are not overridden or with your prior consent.

You can opt out of further marketing at any time by contacting us as described in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

When maintaining and improving our Platform, we may use your account information, marketing and advertising data, and automatically collected information (including location data) to:

Administer our Platform and services, and support internal operations such as audits, troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical analysis, and surveys.
Evaluate and improve our products, services, and Platform, including developing and testing new features.
Keep our Platform safe and secure, and detect or prevent errors, fraud, or other criminal activity.
Enhance the presentation of content to ensure it is displayed effectively for you and your device, and alert you to hardware or software incompatibilities.
Allow you to participate in interactive features of our services, if you choose to do so.

We do this in our legitimate interest, provided your rights are not overridden, and also to comply with legal obligations.

5. What Gives Us the Right to Use Your Personal Data

We process your Personal Data based on applicable legal grounds. First, to fulfill our agreement with you, we collect, store, and process your Personal Data when it is necessary to perform a contract you have with us, such as our Terms and Conditions, or when you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into that contract.

Second, we process your Personal Data in accordance with Akafay’s legitimate business interests, provided that these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. Our legitimate interests include providing you with the information, products, and services you request; sending promotional updates and marketing communications when you have not opted out, particularly in business-to-business contexts or if you have purchased a service; delivering personalized recommendations, promotional updates, and marketing to enhance your experience with our Services; gaining insights into how customers use our Services to deliver, develop, and improve them and to inform our marketing strategy; measuring and understanding the effectiveness of advertising we serve and delivering relevant advertising; maintaining the safety and security of our Services; improving our Platform to ensure content is presented effectively and is compatible with your device; administering our Platform and internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, and surveys; and fulfilling our obligations under agreements with our business partners.

Your Consent

With your consent, we may need to process your Sensitive Data, Credit Data, or automatically process certain Personal Data in order to provide our services to you. We may also process your Personal Data to send you marketing communications. Please refer to Section 6 of this Notice for a detailed list of scenarios where your explicit consent is required and the applicable conditions.

To Comply with Law or Judicial Orders

We may need to process your Personal Data to comply with our legal obligations, including under applicable local laws and any judicial or regulatory orders.

6. Processing of Personal Data When We Need Your Explicit Consent

What is Explicit Consent?

Explicit consent is a direct and clear agreement given by you in a manner that unmistakably indicates your acceptance of the processing of your Personal Data. We keep a record to demonstrate when and how this consent was provided.

Why We Need Your Explicit Consent

We require your explicit consent to:

Process your Sensitive Data
Process your Credit Data
Conduct automated processing of your Personal Data, including profiling

What is Credit Data?

Credit Data refers to any Personal Data related to an individual’s request for, or obtaining of, financing from a financial entity for personal or family purposes. This includes information about an individual’s ability to obtain and repay debts, as well as their credit history.

What is Sensitive Data?

Sensitive Data includes Personal Data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, religious, intellectual, or political beliefs, security information, criminal convictions and offenses, biometric or genetic data for identification purposes, health information, and data indicating unknown parentage.

Sharing Data with Third Parties

We may collect or share any data only with your express consent, in accordance with Section 7 of this Notice.

Your Rights

You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting the Akafay App and ceasing to use the Platform. For more information on the rights available to you, please refer to Section 13 of this Notice.

7. Who Do We Share Your Information With?

We may share your Personal Data with:

Members of our group: This includes our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company, and its subsidiaries. They may support the processing of Personal Data under this Notice, assist us in processing your data, or otherwise receive your Personal Data as part of our group operations.
Selected third parties: This may include credit reference agencies and other organizations required to comply with court orders, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and anti-money laundering rules.
Payment processing providers: These providers facilitate secure payment transactions on our Platform.
Debt collection agencies: Should your account fall into arrears, we may share your data with debt collection agencies to recover amounts owed.
Legal enforcement and compliance: We may share information with law enforcement agencies, regulators, or other government bodies to enforce our rights, protect our rights or the rights of third parties, or comply with legal obligations.

How Do We Protect Your Information?

We take reasonable physical, technical, and organizational measures to protect your Personal Data from unauthorized access, unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. All information you provide to us is stored securely on our servers. Payment transactions made through Akafay are encrypted to ensure the highest level of security.

However, please note that no method of transmission over the internet is completely secure. While we make every effort to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of data transmitted to our Platform. Any transmission is made at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we implement strict procedures and security measures to minimize the risk of unauthorized access.

Child Safety

Protecting the safety of children online is important to us. Akafay is intended for use only by individuals who are at least 18 years old. You may not use our Platform if you are under 18.

9. How Long Do We Keep Your Personal Data?

We retain your Personal Data for as long as you have an account with Akafay, in order to meet our contractual obligations to you. After your account is closed, we may retain your data for up to five years to identify any issues and resolve potential legal proceedings.

If you opt out of receiving promotional updates or marketing communications, or object to other processing of your Personal Data, we may retain a record of your preferences to ensure your choices are respected. We may also retain anonymized, aggregated information beyond this period for research purposes and to improve our services. Such aggregate information cannot identify you personally.

10. What Rights Do You Have?

You have rights over your Personal Data. Below is a summary of these rights and how you can exercise them:

Right to be informed: You have the right to know how, why, for how long, and on what legal basis your Personal Data is processed. You are also entitled to information about any automated decision-making that relies on your Personal Data. This Privacy Notice provides such information. If you have further questions, please contact us as described in the “How to Contact Us” section.
Right of access: You have the right to request access to your Personal Data in writing, to inquire whether we are processing any data relating to you, and to receive information about the purposes of processing, the categories of Personal Data involved, and the recipients or categories of recipients to whom your Personal Data is disclosed.
Right to correct: You may request that we correct any inaccuracies in your Personal Data.
Right to delete: You may request the deletion of your Personal Data, subject to certain requirements. This right is not absolute and applies only in specific circumstances.
Right to restrict processing: You can limit how Akafay uses your Personal Data. If you make such a request, we will only store your Personal Data to comply with applicable laws and not for any other purpose.
Right to object: In certain situations, you may object to specific types of processing, such as receiving marketing communications. This right is subject to conditions.
Right to data portability: In some cases, you may request a copy of your Personal Data in a digital format or ask that it be sent to a third party appointed by you. This right is subject to conditions.
Right to file a complaint: You may file a complaint with the appropriate authority regarding the processing of your Personal Data.
Right to withdraw consent: If your Personal Data is processed based on your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing performed before the consent was withdrawn.

How to Exercise Your Rights

You can exercise your rights by using the contact methods provided in the “How to Contact Us” section of this Privacy Notice. Before we fulfill your request, we may ask for additional information to verify your identity and ensure that you are authorized to make the request.

Changes to This Notice

Akafay reserves the right to update this Privacy Notice at any time. The latest version of the Notice, including its effective date, will always be available on this page. In certain cases, such as when significant changes are made, we may also notify you via email, SMS, or in-app messaging.