AXA IM Data Privacy Policy

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• Preamble
• General information
• What personal data does AXA IM collect and process?
• Information we generate
• How your data is collected and its purpose
• Your rights
• Contact us

Preamble

This data privacy notice is addressed to all customers, prospects, their representatives, directors, officers or beneficial owners, suppliers, contact persons, and other individuals ("Data Subjects", "you") of or in contact with legal entities of the AXA Investment Managers Group ("AXA IM", "us", "we"). It is meant to help you understand what personal data we collect, why we collect it, and how you can exercise your data protection rights.

"Personal Data" in this document is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, by direct or indirect means. A person can be identified directly (e.g. by name and surname) or indirectly (e.g. by a identifier such as a client number, postal or e-mail address, but also by voice). In some countries, this would also be called “personally identifiable information”.

This Policy does not replace the specific privacy notice you shall receive for specific processing activities carried out by AXA IM entities.

General information

This section is about the controller of your personal data, how you may contact the controller and our Global Data Privacy Officer. A controller is a company responsible for the handling of personal data.

Data Controller

The data controller means the company (legal person) who determines the purposes and means of the processing of your personal data. For the overarching processing activities described in this data privacy notice, AXA Investment Managers is data controller. In addition, any affiliate  of AXA IM Investment Managers that processes personal data might become a controller or joint controller of such data. This includes any legal entity of AXA IM group you are in contact with or enter into an agreement with.

AXA Investment Managers
6 Place de la Pyramide
92 800 Puteaux

Data Protection Officer

We have appointed a Global Data Privacy Officer. You can contact this person and the team at any time:

AXA Investment Managers
6 Place de la Pyramide
92 800 Puteaux

dataprivacy@axa-im.com 

What personal data does AXA IM collect and process?

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. A natural person can be identified directly (e.g. by name and surname) or indirectly (e.g. by a telephone number or an identifier such as a client number, postal or e-mail address, but also by voice).

AXA IM takes care to minimise the collection of personal data, to keep it up to date and to ensure its security. Technical and organisational measures are implemented to ensure that your data is adequately protected against unauthorised access, loss, destruction, modification or disclosure.

Some or all of the following personal data will be processed depending on your relationship with AXA IM:

Information you provide:

This is information that is collected directly from you when you complete forms, fund applications or when you communicate with us by telephone, email and generally in connection with the services we provide to you.

The personal data we may collect depends on the specific services, activities or products we offer, but generally includes the following personal information

• name, title, business contact details, tracking of our interactions (including email and telephone - some calls may be recorded);
• data relating to business operations, investments and monitoring of the business relationship;
• physical access data, relating to details of your visits to our premises;
• any dietary preferences you may have (e.g. where we wish to offer you lunch at a meeting)
• profile and usage data, including passwords to AXA IM websites or password-protected platforms or services, your preferences for receiving marketing information from us, your communication preferences, and information about how you use our websites, including the services you accessed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits and page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-over), opening of emails.
• technical data, including information collected during your visits to our website(s), Internet Protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type and version, device type, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.

To learn more about our use of cookies or similar technologies, please see our cookie policy  available on our websites.

In order to comply with our legal obligations to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and for the application of national and international financial sanctions, the data necessary to assess the risk presented by the business relationship and/or the third parties for whom it is acting and/or the beneficial owner of the transaction in question, the transaction requested or the contract entered into may be collected:

Information relating to identity:

- For natural persons: surname, first name(s), status code (Mr., Mrs., Ms.), pseudonym(s), nationality and date and place of birth, a copy of one or more valid official documents bearing his/her photograph, the following information: nature, date and place of issue of the document(s) and the name and capacity of the authority or person who issued the document(s) and, where applicable, authenticated it (them).

- For natural persons representing legal persons: mandates and powers of attorney, identity of managers, partners and agents, copy of any deed or extract from an official register dated less than three months establishing the identity of the partners and managers or their equivalents under foreign law.

• address and proof of address up to date at the time the information is collected;
• professional, economic and financial situation: socio-professional category, NAF code, profession, name of employer, nature and level of income or turnover, proof of economic activity, resources or assets in the form of an undertaking on the person's honour or proof of the truthfulness of the information declared.
• account operation, financial transactions or products purchased: account or contract number, date of opening of the account, subscription of the contract or entry into the relationship, origin, valuation and composition of the assets and funds involved in the transaction, amount and nature of the operations planned and carried out, planned operation of the account, currency handled, origin and destination of the funds (geographical origin, financial institution acting as intermediary, number of accounts credited or debited), identity of the person benefiting from the transaction or contract, declared economic justification for the operation, identity of the actual originator, economic justification declared by the customer.
• assets: elements for assessing assets;
• tax status;
• suspicious transaction reports: existence and content.

In the context of the fight against fraud, AXA IM may collect the following additional information:

• data relating to personal, family and professional situation;
• economic and financial information relating to the conclusion of contracts;
• data relating to anomalies, inconsistencies and reports that may indicate fraud;
• data relating to investigations, the examination of the fraud file and the evaluation of the scope and nature of the presumed or proven fraud and its consequences;
• data relating to risk assessment, determination or evaluation of damage;
• data relating to financial movements, means of payment, transactions/operations (including financial transactions).
  • the client's or potential client's investment knowledge and experience in relation to the specific type of product or service

Finally, as part of the requirements of Directive 2014/65/EU (MIFID), in order to be able to recommend suitable investment services and financial instruments, when providing investment advice or portfolio management services, AXA IM will need to collect the necessary information regarding:

• the financial situation of the client or potential client, including the client's capacity to incur losses;
• their investment objectives, including their risk tolerance.

Information we generate:

This is information and statistics relating to your investments and preferences in our products and services.

Information we collect from other sources:

Some of the personal data we collect as part of our anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and national and international financial sanctions enforcement checks may come from external sources (e.g. public data or EU sanctions lists).

Similarly, where you have invested in our funds or have been introduced to us by a financial adviser or broker, some of the personal data listed above may be provided to us by them.

On what basis is your data collected and used and for what purposes?

Your personal data may be collected and processed by AXA IM on the following legal bases and for the following purposes:

(a) To enable the opening of your account, to manage and administer your holdings in our funds and any related accounts on an ongoing basis, including subscription, redemption, conversion or transfer requests and the distribution of payments;

(b) To comply with our applicable legal, tax or regulatory obligations:

1. Fund legislation: sending you notices or other communications relating to our funds, convening investor meetings;

2. Anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism legislation, and the application of national and international financial sanctions measures:

Implementing monitoring appropriate to the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing throughout the business relationship, detecting funds and economic resources subject to a freezing measure or a sanction measure, identifying risks inherent in the business relationship, placing certain accounts under surveillance, contracts or customers, identification of politically exposed persons, in particular by linking the business relationship file with an external database used as a reference file, identification of funds that should be subject to a freezing measure (taking into account asset freezing lists, OFAC, etc.) );

3. Tax regulation and evasion: we are required to collect certain information about your tax arrangements. Please note that in certain circumstances we may be legally obliged to share this and other financial information relating to your interests in our funds with the relevant tax authorities;

4. Market abuse: taking appropriate steps to identify and prevent market abuse;

5. Recording, retaining and using records of telephone calls you make and receive from us for the purposes of processing and verifying instructions, managing and administering your account(s) and any other matters relating to your investment in our funds;

6. MIFID regulations requiring us to collect client preferences in terms of risk appetite or otherwise.

(c) To pursue our legitimate interests, which include:

1. conducting statistical analysis and market research ;

2. sharing information with legitimate third parties such as auditors, regulatory or tax authorities and our technology providers in the day-to-day operation of our products

3. processing complaints and claims;

4. customer relationship management, which involves: (i) sending you information about AXA IM products and services that we think may be of interest to you; (ii) contacting you to receive feedback about AXA IM products or services; (iii) contacting you for other marketing or research purposes; and (iv) sharing information about upcoming events and (v) performing marketing analysis and profiling on the basis of combined data (e.g., your participation in events, the number of visitors to AXA IM's website, the number of visitors to AXA IM’s website and the number of visitors to AXA IM's website). (e.g., your participation in events, opening of emails);

5. tailoring and personalising the information we distribute, by combining and analysing the data we collect, so that we can send you information about our services and products that are relevant to you or your business to provide a tailored and relevant experience;

6. anti-fraud: anomaly detection, analysis and alert management, as well as building lists of proven fraudsters.

What happens if you do not provide us with the personal data requested?

If you do not provide the personal data we need to accept your application, manage and administer your holdings in our funds or provide you with other investment services, we will not be able to accept your application or provide you with investment services or, where appropriate, we may be required to terminate our relationship with you.

We also encourage you to inform us as soon as possible of any changes to your personal data.

Who has access to your personal data?

AXA IM takes all necessary measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of the data it collects, i.e. that only authorised persons have access to it.

Only persons authorised by virtue of their activity in the relevant AXA IM departments in charge of the processing concerned have access to your information, and only within the scope of their authorisation.

AXA Investment Managers Group companies (subsidiaries and branches), our service providers and our partners may also have secure access to your information to the extent necessary for the performance of their services or our partnerships.

Your information will also be provided to certain authorities (tax, financial and other) in accordance with applicable law and regulations. 

Do we transfer your personal data abroad?

Due to the global organisation of AXA IM and the use of international service providers (technology or financial), some of your personal data may be transferred (i.e. accessed or stored) outside of your country and the European Union, to countries that do not have personal data protection legislation equivalent to that of the country of origin of the data (Third Countries).

However, in order to ensure an equivalent or substantially equivalent level of protection for your data and as required by the GDPR and the French Data Protection Act, AXA IM has put in place EU standard contractual clauses and binding corporate rules (Cyber Security and Data Privacy | AXA) that govern all transfers of personal data to these Third Countries.

For any further information, including if you wish to obtain a copy of the documents used to protect your data, please contact us at dataprivacy@axa-im.com.

How long do we keep your personal data?

Most data collected in relation to a particular customer is retained for the duration of the contractual relationship plus a set number of years after the contractual relationship has ended.

Our criteria for determining our retention periods are: meeting our operational obligations (e.g. account maintenance, facilitating customer relationship management) and legal requirements (where applicable).

In the event of regulatory demands or legal claims, our retention rules may be increased in this regard for the defence of AXA IM.

What are your rights?

Under the conditions defined by the RGPD and the French Data Protection Act, you have the right to access, rectify, oppose, limit, delete and port your personal data, which you can exercise by contacting the AXA IM Data Privacy Officer (DPO) at the following address: dataprivacy@axa-im.com.

In addition, any marketing email can be stopped at any time and without reason by clicking on the link provided in our communications, or by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

If you feel that your request has not been dealt with correctly, you can lodge a complaint with your local European Data Protection Authority or with the French authority (CNIL).

Will there be any changes to this policy?

This policy is up to date and dates from July 2024. It may be amended from time to time and is available on our website.

Contact us

If you have any questions about the collection, use, retention, disclosure, transfer or processing of your personal information, if you wish to obtain information on the balance of interests test (analysis of the legitimacy of the interest pursued) for processing operations based on our legitimate interests or if you wish to exercise any of your rights listed above, you may contact our Data Protection Officer below.