Privacy Policy for our Customers

Merchants State Bank highly respects your privacy and the importance of the trust you have with us as your banking institution.  We are making this information available to you to acknowledge the importance of the privacy of account owner financial records and will make every effort to protect their financial privacy through compliance with the federal Right to Financial Privacy Act.

Information We Collect
Merchants State Bank may collect non-public personal information* about you from the following sources:

     -Information we receive from you on applications or other forms
     -Information about your transactions with us or others
     -Information we receive from a consumer reporting agency

*Non-public Personal Information.  Information that is not available from public sources (such as telephone books, newspapers, real estate records) or information that is required to be disclosed to the general public by Federal, State, or Local law.

Information We May Disclose About You
We do not disclose any non-public personal information about our customers or former customers, except which is permitted or required by law.  Even if your accounts become inactive or if you decide to close them, we still practice our privacy policies and practices.  We will make every effort to insure your privacy at all times.

Confidentiality and Security
Merchants State Bank maintains security access to your personal and account information to only employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.

Merchants State Bank maintains physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to guard your non-public personal information.

Maintaining Accurate Information
We constantly strive to maintain accurate and complete information about you and your accounts.  Should you believe that our records contain inaccurate information or incomplete information about you, please notify us at any one of our telephone numbers listed below.  We will correct any inaccuracies immediately.

Merchants State Bank Offices:

FREEMAN
305 S. Main, PO Box 399
Freeman, SD  57029
Ph: 605-925-4222
Toll Free: 1-888-242-0230
Fax: 605-925-4836

HURLEY
606 Center Ave., PO Box 308
Hurley, SD  57036
Ph: 605-238-5255
Fax: 605-238-5288

VIBORG
103 N. Main, PO Box 535
Viborg, SD  57070
Ph: 605-766-4255
Fax: 605-766-1247

Merchants State Bank is committed to making sure your Online Banking is safe and secure.  With our own security infrastructure in place, we are confident that access to your accounts is private and secure; we are unable to provide similar assurance of other websites.  Only provide your Access ID or Online ID when your browser shows a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection directly to the Merchants State Bank website or to another site you have investigated and fully trust.  SSL encryption turns all Internet communication between you and Merchants State Bank - from your password to your money transfer requests - into a string of unrecognizable numbers.  Only Merchants State Bank and your computer can decode the information.  This process safeguards your banking session from intruders.

How we handle e-mail:
We preserve the content of your e-mail, your e-mail address, and our response so we can more efficiently handle any follow-up questions you may have.  We also do this to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Regular non-encrypted e-mail is not secure; therefore, carefully consider the content of your e-mail messages to us before they are sent.  Since an Internet e-mail response back to you would not be secure, we will not include confidential account information in an e-mail response.

No Data "Capture" with Planning Tools:
There are financial calculators at Merchants State Bank's website that help you figure loan payments, interest charges, maximum loan amounts, maximum home purchase amounts, college funding, and retirement planning.  We encourage you to try all your "what if" scenarios as often as you like.  When you use the various financial calculators on our website, the calculations run on your personal computer (PC) or on our server.  We do not capture the personal information you provide on these calculators.

When Information is Collected and Not Collected:
Some areas of our website require information, such as application information, e-mail address, or account number, to enable you to perform certain tasks.  In these cases, we collect your information if necessary to interact with you.  This information will only be used by Merchants State Bank to provide you with services you have requested or are likely to be interested in.  If you do not interact with us or you browse our website anonymously, personal information, such as your e-mail address, is not collected.

Protecting Our Children:
We do not knowingly solicit data from children, and we do not knowingly market to children.  We recognize that protecting children's identities and privacy online is important and the responsibility to do so rests with both the online industry and with parents.

Other sites:
We are not responsible for the content on sites linked from www.msb-sd.com.

How we Guard Against Identity Theft and Other Fraud:
If unscrupulous parties obtain certain information, such as your social security number and account numbers, they could misappropriate your identity or defraud you.  We recognize this type of information requires heightened security, and we do not allow unrelated third parties to have it except to ensure the accuracy of data we provide or receive (for example, it is necessary to provide your social security number to a credit bureau to ensure information is accurately reported in your credit file).  We hold our employees responsible for our privacy principles, and we remind employees to be cognizant of privacy principles when asked to disclose customer financial information.