BANK OF GRANITE
GRANITE MORTGAGE, INC.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT PRIVACY

This notice contains important information about privacy of personal information that we collect about our customers and how that information may be used.   In this privacy notice “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Bank of Granite and Granite Mortgage, Inc., which are part of Bank of Granite Corporation.  This notice is meant to inform you of how we safeguard your nonpublic personal financial information. 

We believe that protecting each customer’s privacy is the cornerstone of a strong business relationship.  The privacy of your information is protected not only by state and federal laws, but more importantly, by our commitment to you.  We recognize and respect your expectation of the privacy of your information and will use strict security standards to safeguard it.  We collect only information about you that is needed to serve you and administer our business and carefully limit and control the sharing of your information.  We strive to ensure that any information we collect about you is accurate, complete and secure.

We collect nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

• information we receive from you on applications or other forms such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income
• information (such as account balance and payment history) related to your transactions with us, our affiliate, or with others
• information that we receive in response to requests we make to nonaffiliated third parties about our customers, particularly in the process of evaluating loan applications
• information that we receive from consumer credit reporting agencies, commonly known as credit bureaus

• information we receive from you on applications or other forms such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income
• information about your transactions with us, our affiliate, or others such as your account balance, payment history and parties to transactions
• information we receive from a consumer reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness or credit history

We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to anyone, except as permitted by law.  We are permitted by law to disclose nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to the following types of companies:

• Financial services providers such as mortgage bankers, securities broker-dealers and insurance agents
• nonfinancial companies who we request to verify the accuracy of information that a customer has provided to us
• other financial institutions who inquire whether our relationship with a customer is satisfactory
• nonaffiliated third parties as permitted by law.

We may disclose the following information to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with which we have joint-marketing agreements: 

• information we receive from you on applications or other forms such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income
• information (such as account balance and payment history) related to your transactions with us, our affiliate or with others
• information that we receive in response to requests we make to nonaffiliated third parties about our customers, particularly in the process of evaluating loan applications
• information that we receive from consumer credit reporting agencies, commonly known as credit bureaus

We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.  We hold our employees to the highest standard of conduct in ensuring the confidentiality of customer information.  We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard your nonpublic personal information.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act permits us by law to share within the Bank of Granite organization information concerning a customer’s account history and experiences with us.  Unless you tell us not to, we also may share within our organization:

• Information we receive from you on an application such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income
• information we received from a consumer reporting agency or other third party

If you do not want us to share information within our organization about you as permitted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, please notify us in writing at:
Bank of Granite
Account Services
PO Box 128
Granite Falls, NC 28630-0128

We provide our customers a copy of our privacy policy annually. 
If you have previously notified us of your preference, it is not necessary to notify us again.