Privacy & Security

At EduCap Inc® ("EduCap"), protecting the privacy of your personal information is very important to us. This notice describes our practices, policies and how we protect your non-public personal information (information not from a public source). Rest assured, these practices and policies will continue to protect your information even after our relationship with you ends. The practices and policies set forth below replace any previous notices or statements from EduCap on the same subject matter.

By using the website provided to you by EduCap (the “Website”), you have also agreed to the electronic notice disclosure and consent in the "Loan to Learn®" – Terms of Use. You have affirmatively consented to receive all further notices and disclosures regarding the EduCap privacy policy, including the annual notice required under applicable law, electronically or by electronic means, and not in paper or other non-electronic forms.

Collecting Information

We collect and maintain partner and borrower information to serve you better and administer your loan(s) and loan programs. The information that we collect may be required for us to comply with laws and regulations that apply to participants in education loan programs. We collect the following nonpublic personal information:

  • Information we receive about you from your application, promissory notes, correspondence, communications, and other forms such as your name, address, social security number, school and course of study.
  • Information received from the schools you attend or formerly attended, or to which you have applied for admission.
  • Information we receive from consumer credit reporting agencies, which report on your credit history.
  • Information that we collect from you during your relationship with us, our affiliates or others (such as student loan lenders, guarantors, servicers and the U.S. Department of Education), such as your loan balance, repayment history and any other parties involved in your transaction(s), such as a creditworthy co-signer or another.

Information Security

So you can feel safe, we impose strict standards of security and confidentiality and maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to guard any information you share with us. We continually assess new technology for protecting information and upgrade our systems when appropriate. Our employees, contractors and agents are required to protect the confidentiality of your information in compliance with our established policies, and we endeavor to restrict access to nonpublic personal information to our employees, contractors and agents who have a business reason for access, such as servicing and collecting your loan. Employees who violate our privacy policies are subject to our normal disciplinary process.

With Whom Do We Disclose Your Information?

EduCap does not share or otherwise disclose your nonpublic personal information to any other entities except as required or permitted by applicable law, specifically the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Therefore, we only share your information as follows (examples to follow):

  • when you explicitly instruct and authorize us to,
  • with parties involved in the loan process,
  • with service providers that assist us with processes or functions, and
  • as otherwise permitted or required by law.

Disclosing Information to Parties Involved in the Loan Process. EduCap works with several highly reputable third parties involved in the loan process. In order to receive the financial services you or your students have requested, EduCap must receive and disclose information about school(s) and borrower(s) to and from the parties who participate in the loan process by funding, collecting, processing, administrating, servicing or maintaining a borrower's education loan.

  • Example: A network of different parties are required to process a loan application, administer the loan while it is outstanding and provide the borrower with customer service during the loan repayment period. Therefore, information must be shared amongst these companies. Each of these companies is required by law to adhere to applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. We require the service providers we use to sign business agreements that restrict their use of borrower information to fulfilling the contracted service.

Disclosing Information to Companies Performing Services on Our Behalf. EduCap works with several highly reputable service providers that perform loan program services who may have access to your information.

  • Example: We use service providers to assist us with various processes or functions such as distributing our emails for us or processing automatic payments that you or your students may have requested as part of a loan transaction. We require such service providers we use to sign business agreements that restrict their use of your information to fulfilling the contracted service.

Disclosures Permitted or Required By Law. We may disclose information when we believe it necessary to conduct our business and where disclosure is permitted or required by law.

  • Example: In order to administer an education loan, as needed for the purpose of offering, processing, servicing and collecting loans, we may disclose a borrower's nonpublic personal information to other parties in the student lending business, such as guarantors, lenders, loan servicers, the Department of Education, credit bureaus and schools.
  • Example: We may be required to share borrower information with law enforcement or government agencies in response to a court order, subpoena, state/federal audit or other similar circumstances.

Joint Marketing Agreements.

In addition to the examples set forth above, we may disclose any of the information we collect to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf pursuant to joint marketing agreements. Rest assured, however, that through these joint marketing agreements, we require these companies to comply with our strict privacy and data security requirements and thereby keep your information confidential and usable only to provide the specific services that we have requested therein.

Modifications to this Privacy Policy.

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. As required by law, we will send our current customers our most recent privacy notice at least annually. However, all of our privacy policies apply to our former customers as well as our current customers. The practices and policies in this disclosure replace all previous notices or statements on the same subject matter.

How Do You Correct Inaccurate Information?

Keeping your information accurate and up-to-date is very important. If you ever find that your information is incomplete, inaccurate or not current, please contact us at the email address provided below and we will promptly update or correct any erroneous information.

Online Advertising Note

Loan to Learn takes our role as responsible corporate citizens very seriously, and we insist on the highest standard of conduct for ourselves and our partners. While we advertise online to promote our products and services, we do not and will not knowingly engage in predatory advertising practices such as parasitic software, un-closable pop-ups or spyware. If you find an online advertisement for Loan to Learn that does not meet this standard, we want to know about it as soon as possible. Please send a priority email message to alertbox@loantolearn.com.

How to know where a pop-up is coming from

If possible, right-click on the pop-up window, select "Properties" from the drop down menu and include the url address that you see, so we can investigate the source of the pop-ups. You should also include your email address and phone number so we can contact you if necessary.

Removing pop-ups

If you are experiencing pop-up advertisements generated by one of these malicious programs, you may want to remove the pop-up program from your computer. Reputable programs that attempt to detect and to uninstall pop-up programs are freely available on the Internet. We do not have a relationship with any purveyors of such software, however, and do not endorse or vouch for any such software.

Filing a complaint

If you feel you were deceived when you installed a program on your computer (for example. the program caused the creation of pop-ups on your computer without asking you), you may also want to take action. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to: Federal Trade Commission, CRC-240, Washington, D.C. 20580.

Contact Us

Should you have any questions concerning Privacy Policy issues, please forward them to the following email address: support@loantolearn.com

Revised 09/04

Privacy Policy of HSBC Bank USA, National Association:

HSBC's Commitment To You

At HSBC, the basis of every customer relationship is trust. You choose to do business with us and we value that relationship, beginning with the personal information you share with HSBC.

Federal legislation requires that all financial institutions provide customers with a statement outlining policies and practices related to the sharing of personal financial information. At HSBC, we have always recognized the importance of protecting your privacy.

  • We do not sell your personal information to other companies for their independent marketing purposes.
  • We use information responsibly to offer you additional benefits and discounts including preferred interest rates and related financial services.
  • We utilize a combination of safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to your personal information and protect you against the criminal use of it.
  • We require that all HSBC employees maintain the confidentiality of your information.

HSBC's Commitment To Privacy

This Privacy Policy outlines the types of personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it and with whom we share it. HSBC is committed to safeguarding your personal information. One of the ways we do that is by restricting access to your account(s) to only those employees who need to know this information to provide you with the products and services you have requested. In addition, we maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards.

Why We Collect Information

We collect information about you for two important reasons:

  • To identify you when you are conducting financial transactions with HSBC to prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to your personal and financial information.
  • To offer you preferred interest rates, special discounts and other related services to help you achieve your financial goals.

What Information We Collect

We collect nonpublic personal information about you (as described below) from the following sources:

  • Applications and forms you complete to obtain HSBC products and services.
  • Your transactions with the HSBC family of companies or others.
  • Third parties such as credit bureaus.

Information We Share with HSBC Affiliates

Many of our customers tell us they want to learn about all the financial services HSBC Bank USA, National Association and its affiliates - HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA), HSBC Insurance Agency (USA) Inc., and HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. - can provide. By sharing information with other members of the HSBC family of companies, we can offer you a complete range of financial services.

The information we may share about you is limited to your account history and experiences within the HSBC family of companies. (Notice to California and Vermont residents: This information will not be shared for marketing purposes.)

Information We Share with Nonaffiliated Third Parties

We do not sell information to other companies for their independent marketing purposes.

We may share nonpublic personal information (as described below) with nonaffiliated third parties contracted on our behalf to perform services necessary for the routine operation of your account(s). This includes services such as check printing, data processing, loan servicing, and fraud prevention.

We may also share nonpublic personal information (as described below) with nonaffiliated third parties performing marketing services on our behalf, with other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements (not applicable to California residents), or as permitted by law or with your consent.

The nonpublic personal information we may share with nonaffiliated third parties includes:

  • Information we receive from you on applications or other loan and account forms such as assets, age and income.
  • Information we receive from credit bureaus such as your credit score, creditworthiness and payment history.
  • Information we obtain to verify representations made by you such as your credit or deposit accounts with other financial institutions, or your employment history.
  • All nonaffiliated third parties are required to maintain the confidentiality of the customer information we share with them.

This Privacy Policy has been adopted by HSBC Bank USA, National Association for current and former student loan accounts serviced by EduCap, Inc.