Terms of use | Blackbullion

Blackbullion terms of use

This document was last updated on 14th November 2023.

Welcome to Blackbullion!

Please read these terms of use (“Terms of Use” or “Terms”) carefully. They apply to your use of the Blackbullion Ltd (“Blackbullion”, “we”, “us” or “our”) websites (available at www.blackbullion.com and www.business.blackbullion.com) and the Blackbullion App (together, the “Sites”) and the products and services that are provided by us via the Sites. We will refer to the Sites and the related products and services that are offered through the Sites as the “Services”. Any users of our Services will be referred to in these Terms as a “User”. These Terms apply to all sites and all products and services that are offered by Blackbullion.

These Terms of Use will constitute a legally binding agreement between you and us regarding your use of our Services. It is your responsibility to carefully read these Terms before using our Services. Your use of our Services is contingent upon your acceptance of these Terms of Use as well as our other Policies (as defined below).

Use of our Services will be considered to be acceptance of these Terms and our Policies (as defined below). If you do not agree to these Terms, then you must not use our Services. As long as you comply with these Terms, you have the right to access and use our Services for your own personal use. By accessing and using the Services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and that you agree to comply with them.

You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our Services through your internet connection are aware of these Terms and the Policies (as defined below), and that they comply with them.

If you have any questions regarding these Terms or about Blackbullion, please contact us by email at support@blackbullion.com.

Other terms that may apply to you

These Terms refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our Services (the “Policies”):

Our Privacy Notice (which includes our Cookie Policy)
Our App Terms of Use
Our Accessibility Statement

Each of the Policies are incorporated into these Terms of Use by reference.

Changes to these Terms

We amend these Terms and the Policies from time to time. Every time you wish to use our Services, please check these Terms to ensure you understand the terms and conditions that apply at that time. Your continued use of our Services following any such amendments will be deemed to be your acceptance of those changes.

These Terms were most recently updated on the date stated at the beginning.

Our Services

Our Services are open to students who are aged 16 years or older.

Our Services assist students by providing them with an overview of their financial life. Students can use our App to connect their bank accounts through our open banking provider Bud Financial Limited (“Bud”). Users of our Services can run their open banking data through Bud’s machine learning models in order to enrich transactions with categories (e.g. food & drink, savings etc.) and merchants.

Users can then use our Services to identify recurring transactions and personalise their budget.

We also use open banking data to present Users with a breakdown of their spending week-to-week, as well as using their next loan payment date to recommend a weekly spending limit that will see them through until the end of the university term.

Users can also use the Blackbullion platform to access learning on a range of financial education topics, as well as to search and apply for funding opportunities.

We may update and change our Services from time to time to reflect changes to our products, our Users' needs and our business priorities.

Account

In order to use our Services, you will first need to register an account with us.

Our Services are not intended for, and do not knowingly collect personal information from, individuals under the age of 16. By registering an account with us you warrant and affirm that you are 16 years of age or older.

You will need to provide your first name, last name and email address in order to register an account – Users cannot register on our Sites without this information.

If you have already registered a Blackbullion account via our website, you can use that same account to access our App (and vice versa).

If you have already connected an open banking account on any of our Sites, you will be asked if you would like to opt in to using data from that account when you sign up.

You are solely responsible for any and all use of your account. Although we will not be liable for your losses caused by any unauthorised use of your account, you may be liable for the losses of Blackbullion or others due to such unauthorised use.

We may refuse to open an account for any reason, at our sole discretion.

You must keep your account details safe

If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of the registration of your account or our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and keeping your password secure, and you must not disclose it to any third party.

We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these Terms.

You agree to notify us immediately at support@blackbullion.com if you suspect any unauthorised use of your account, access to your password, or any other breach of security in relation to our Services.

Account prohibitions

You may not: (a) create more than one account; (b) provide any false personal information to us, create any account for anyone other than yourself, or permit any other person to create an account for you; or (c) use the account, username, or password of another User at any time or disclose your password to any third party.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account if any information provided during the account creation or registration process or thereafter proves to be inaccurate, false, misleading, duplicative of an existing account, or in violation of these Terms.

Onboarding and bank accounts

In order to be onboarded onto our Services, you will need to provide us with your university (if applicable). For the App you will also need to connect your account to at least one bank account. Once you have linked your bank account to your Blackbullion account, we will be able to see the following data from your bank account:

• Bank name (e.g. Barclays)
• Sort code
• Account number
• Current balance
• Bank nickname (e.g. “My debit account”)
• Transactions data (including payment amounts, date, description and merchant)

Termination

These Terms shall remain in full force and effect while you use the Services, have an account, and even after your account is terminated.

You may terminate your account at any time, for any reason, by emailing support@blackbullion.com.

You agree that we may also terminate your account or use of the Services at any time in our sole discretion if you breach these Terms, or otherwise, and you agree that we shall not be liable to you or any third party for any such termination.

If you or we terminate your account, your access to the Services will be terminated.

We may suspend or withdraw our Services

Our Services are made available free of charge.

We do not guarantee that our Services, or any content on our Sites, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our Services for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.

We may transfer this agreement to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another organisation. We will always tell you in writing if this happens and we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract.

How you may use material on our Sites

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our Sites, and in the material published on them. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded from our Sites in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our Sites must always be acknowledged (except where the content is user-generated).

You must not use any part of the content on our Sites for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

If you print off, copy, download, share or repost any part of our Sites in breach of these Terms, your right to use our Services will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

You may not remove, alter or obscure any copyright, trade mark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Services. The content on the Sites, including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, and interactive features, is provided to you as is for your information and personal use only and may not be downloaded, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of Blackbullion and any other respective owners.

You acknowledge and agree that any feedback, comments or suggestions you may provide regarding the Services will be the sole and exclusive property of Blackbullion, and you hereby irrevocably assign to us all of your right, title and interest in and to the foregoing.

Restrictions

You may not (a) copy, modify or distribute any element of the Sites, including without limitation any content on the Sites, in whole or in part, for any purpose; (b) transfer, sublicense, lease, lend, rent or otherwise distribute the Services to any third party; (c) decompile, reverse-engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works of the Sites, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Sites; (d) make the functionality of the Sites available to multiple users through any means; or (e) use the Services in any unlawful manner, for any unlawful purpose, or in any manner inconsistent with these Terms.

You further agree not to (i) interfere with, damage, impair, or disable the Service's operation, by any means (whether through automated means or otherwise), including uploading or otherwise disseminating viruses, worms, spyware, adware or other malicious code; (ii) make unsolicited offers, advertisements, proposals, or send junk mail or spam to other Users, or use the Services for commercial purposes; (iii) use any robot, spider, scraper, or other automated means to access the Sites for any purpose without our express consent or bypass our robot exclusion headers or similar measures; (iv) remove, circumvent, disable, damage or otherwise interfere with the Sites' security-related features, features that prevent or restrict the use or copying of any part of the Sites, or features that enforce the Sites’ limitations; (v) attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Services, other User accounts, computer systems or networks connected to the Services through hacking, password mining, or any other means; (vi) deep-link to the Sites; (vii) reformat or frame any portion of the Services; or (viii) take any action that imposes, or may impose, in our sole discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our technology infrastructure or otherwise make excessive traffic demands of the Sites.

It is your responsibility to confirm the information provided by you

We will use our reasonable endeavours to ensure that the information that is contained on our Sites and through our Services reflects the information that has been provided by you or through your open banking data. It is your responsibility to check and confirm that the information provided to us by you and through your open banking data is correct. We will not be responsible or liable for any incorrect information that is provided to us by you or through your open banking data.

We are not providing any professional advice

The content on our Sites are provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice (whether financial or otherwise) on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of our Services.

Third party content

The Sites may contain links, information, and references to third party content, products, services, and websites which we do not control or maintain ("Third Party Sites").

Access to and use of any Third Party Sites is at your own risk and we are not responsible for (a) the accuracy or reliability of information on Third Party Sites, (b) the acts or omissions of the operators of Third Party Sites (or their partners or affiliates), (c) any loss or damage incurred in connection with the use of any Third Party Site, or (d) any transaction you consummate in connection with your use or access of any Third Party Site. We provide these links merely as a convenience, and the inclusion of such links does not imply an endorsement. You should review any applicable terms and policies of such Third Party Sites, including without limitation the privacy policies, since their terms and policies, not ours, apply to your interactions with them. In addition, we will not and cannot censor or edit the content of any Third Party Site. You expressly relieve and release Blackbullion from any and all liability arising from your use of any Third Party Site.

User-generated content is not approved by us

The Sites may include information and materials uploaded by other Users, including links to social media pages, video-sharing sites, bulletin boards and chat rooms. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other Users on our Sites do not represent our views or values.

How to complain about or report content

If you become aware of any material that could comprise or be connected to child sexual abuse or exploitation or that could comprise terrorist content or be connected to terrorism, or if you wish to complain about any other content, please contact us immediately at support@blackbullion.com.

Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Please note that we only provide our Services for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our Services for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

If defective digital content that we have supplied damages a device or digital content belonging to you and this is caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation to the extent required under law to remedy any damages that are actually suffered by you. However, we will not be liable for damage that you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage that was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.

Indemnification

You agree to defend (at our request), indemnify and hold harmless Blackbullion and its employees, directors, officers and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including without limitation, reasonable attorneys' fees and costs, arising out of or in any way connected with any of the following (including as a result of your direct activities in relation to the Services or those conducted on your behalf): (i) your access to or use of the Services; (ii) your breach or alleged breach of these Terms; (iii) your violation of any third-party right, including without limitation, any intellectual property right, publicity, confidentiality, property or privacy right; (iv) your violation of any laws, rules, regulations, codes, statutes, ordinances or orders of any governmental and quasi-governmental authorities, including, without limitation, all regulatory, administrative and legislative authorities; or (v) any misrepresentation made by you.

You will cooperate as fully required by Blackbullion in the defence of any claim. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you, and you will not in any event settle any claim without our prior written consent. This defence and indemnification obligation will survive expiration or termination of these Terms of Use and your use of the Services.

How we may use your personal information

We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Notice. Please read our Privacy Policy carefully for details relating to what information and data we collect from you and how we use that information internally and disclose it to third parties.

Uploading content to our Services

We amend these Terms and the Policies from time to time.

These Terms were most recently updated on the date stated at the beginning.

Changes to these Terms

Any information, data or other content you upload to our Sites (“Content”) will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your Content, but you are required to grant us a limited licence to use, store and copy that Content and to distribute and make it available to third parties. The rights you license to us are described in the section below.

We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any Content posted or uploaded by you to our Sites constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights or of their right to privacy.

You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your Content.

You must not upload any material that could incite a terrorist offence, solicit any person to participate in terrorist activities, provide instruction on any method or technique for committing a terrorist offence or threaten to commit a terrorist offence.

Rights you are giving us to use material you upload

When you upload or post Content to our Sites, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that user-generated Content in connection with the Services and across different media including to promote the Sites or the Services, which shall expire when you delete the Content from the Sites.

We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them

We do not guarantee that our Sites will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our Services. You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse our Sites by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our Sites, the server on which our Sites are stored or any server, computer or database connected to our Sites. You must not attack our Sites via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our Services will cease immediately.

Rules about linking to our Sites

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.

You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link to our Sites in any website that is not owned by you.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

Which country's laws apply to any disputes?

Please note that these Terms of Use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.

Our trademarks are registered

"BLACKBULLION" and the Blackbullion logo are UK registered trademarks of Blackbullion Ltd. You are not permitted to use them without our approval, unless they are part of material you are using as permitted under these Terms.

Miscellaneous

The Terms of Use, Policies and any other legal notices published by Blackbullion on the Sites shall constitute the entire agreement between you and Blackbullion concerning the Services.

The heading references herein are for convenience purposes only, do not constitute part of these Terms, and shall not limit or affect any provision hereof.

The relationship of the parties hereunder is that of independent contractors, and these Terms will not be construed to imply that either party is the agent, employee, or joint venturer of the other.

In the event that any provision or part-provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, these Terms will continue in full force and effect without said provision and will be interpreted to reflect the original intent of the parties.

You may not assign these Terms of Use without the prior written consent of Blackbullion, and any prohibited assignment will be null and void.

There are no third party beneficiary rights under these Terms of Use.

Waiver by either party of a breach of any provision of these Terms or the failure by either party to exercise any right hereunder will not operate or be construed as a waiver of any subsequent breach of that right or as a waiver of any other right.

Contacting us

If you have any questions or comments about Blackbullion, these Terms of Use, the Policies, the practices of the Sites, or your dealings with the Sites, please contact us at:

Blackbullion Ltd
5 Technology Park, Colindeep Ln, London NW9 6BX
support@blackbullion.com