Privacy & Security Statement
Privacy Statement
For Your Peace Of Mind
Stearns Bank N.A. has always respected your privacy and will continue to do so.
Information We Collect
We collect, use, and retain nonpublic personal information about our customers when we reasonably believe that it will help administer our business or to provide products, services, and other opportunities.
Nonpublic personal information is personally identifiable financial information that we obtain in connection with providing a financial product or service. For example, nonpublic personal financial information includes information regarding account balance, payment history, and overdraft history.
We collect nonpublic personal information (examples listed) from the following sources:
- Information from application or other loan and
account forms, such as:- name
- address
- SS#
- assets
- income
- Information about account transactions such as:
- account balance
- payment histories
- parties to transactions
- credit card usage
- Information received from a consumer credit reporting
agency, such as:credit & payment history
Information Disclosed and to Whom
We may disclose nonpublic personal information about customers and former customers (examples listed above) to nonaffiliated third parties that perform services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with which we have a joint marketing agreement.
We are permitted or required under law to share specific information about accounts or other personally identifiable data to either affiliates (companies related to us by common control or ownership) or non-affiliated third parties. Information shared with affiliates is limited to our experience or transactions with you.
Safeguarding the Security of Customer Info
We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural information safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard nonpublic personal information.
We train our staff thoroughly to know that all information is confidential. We restrict access to nonpublic personal information to those employees who need to know such information to provide products or services to you.
Security Statement
Stearns Bank N.A. employs the latest in Internet Security and User Authentication to ensure that data being transmitted
through the Internet Banking System is secure from unauthorized access. The methods are outlined below.
Digital IDs from VeriSign
Stearns Bank’s IBS system uses digital IDs certified by VeriSign, an industry leader in digital identification certificates, to authenticate user information and provide access to data through the system.
How do Digital IDs work?
Digital IDs work off a matched key setup where the server has a ‘private’ key issued only to the server and a ‘public’ key widely distributed to the bank’s customers. A digital ID requires a matched pair of keys that are unique to each other to encrypt and decrypt data. With this set-up, transactions created, encrypted, and transmitted by bank customers using the public key can only be decrypted by the other key in the pair running on the Bank server.
Secured Data Transmission
The Internet Banking System combined with the digital ID authentication through VeriSign allow the server to implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, the standard technology for secure web-based communications. With SSL, data traveling between the bank and the customer is encrypted and can only be decrypted through the pairing of the public and private key pair. SSL capability is built into server hardware and browsers, but requires a digital ID to be functional.
Server Access
Server access is protected using a firewall computer and the leading firewall software, Checkpoint’s Firewall-1. Firewall computers provide secure access to the Web Server and Checkpoint’s software by allowing only authorized traffic to hit the Server. By combining the latest technology with authenticated access to the Web Server, Stearns Bank N.A. makes your Internet Banking transactions secure.
