Privacy Policy

The following privacy policy serves as a standard for all First Federal employees for collection, use, retention, and security of your nonpublic personal information.

The Information We Collect

In order to provide or maintain your accounts, we may gather “nonpublic personal information” about you.  Collected via our account application and other account documentation, this information is critical to open and administer your account.  Common examples may include your account history, loan payment history, and similar date.  Such information may
come from any of the following sources:

  • Information we receive from you on applications or other loan and account forms

  • Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others

  • Information we may receive from third parties such as credit bureaus, property inspection services, or the Department of Motor Vehicles

  • Predecessor trustees (when applicable)

  • Attorneys, accountants, or other professionals assisting in the administration of your account(s)

  • Transactions facilitated through First Financial affiliates

In addition to the servicing of your accounts, we may use this information to help develop new products and services to better meet your needs.  It also may be used to help us alert you to products and services that may be of value to you. To provide superior customer service to our clients, it is sometimes necessary for us to share information within the First Financial family of companies.  However, when any affiliate gathers credit information from you or about you, it stays completely within that affiliate.

  Internet Privacy Policy

We recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of personally-identifying information that may be submitted to us when you visit our website. The information we receive depends on what you do when you visit our site. This is how we handle the information we learn about you from your visit to our website.

If you visit our site to read or download information on our web pages such as press releases and checking and savings account information:

We collect and store only the following information about you: name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com, if you are connecting from an America Online account, or a similar domain corresponding to your Internet Service Provider "ISP"); date and time you access our website; pages you may have visited on our site; and Internet address of the website from where you came to visit our website.

We use the information we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different pages and sections of our site, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.

If you visit our website to use interactive banking tools such as financial calculators and self-tests:

You may be asked for personal information in order to complete the requested analysis or evaluation. This information is NOT retained.

If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail, signing on and using our Internet Banking feature, or filling out forms such as applications, check reorder forms, contact forms and guest registers:

You may be asked for personally-identifying information in order to process your e-mail, transaction, form or application. This information may be retained by us and our business partners for processing and to facilitate decisions. Information you submit to us is treated no differently than any information you might provide in a written format such as a brochure application, reorder slip to order checks, or a letter.

We Want To Be Very Clear

We protect and safeguard the privacy of users of our on-line services, just as we do throughout the rest of our business. We will use personal information to identify you, to communicate with you, and to help us answer your questions.

We will NOT sell personally-identifying information to a third party for the purpose of solicitation or provide personal information to a third party for its own use.

Sometimes we send our customers information about our products and services. If you do not wish to receive this information, or if you believe that your personal information is incorrect please contact us. We will investigate the situation and if appropriate update our records.

If you have any questions that are not answered in this section please contact us.

What You Should Know About Security

This Internet Website brings together a combination of industry-approved security technologies to protect data for the bank and for you, our customer. It features password-controlled system entry, a VeriSign-issued Digital ID for the bank's server, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol for data encryption, a router and firewall to regulate the inflow and outflow of server traffic.

Secure Access and Verifying User Authenticity

To begin a session with the bank's server the user must key in a Log-in ID and a password. The Internet Banking Solution uses a "3 strikes and you're out" lock-out mechanism to deter users from repeated log-in attempts. After three unsuccessful log-in attempts, the system locks the user out, requiring either a designated wait period or a phone call to the bank to verify the password before re-entry into the system. Upon successful log-in, the Digital ID from VeriSign, the experts in digital identification certificates, authenticates the user's identity and establishes a secure session with that visitor.

Secure Data Transfer

Once the server session is established, the user and the server are in a secured environment. Because the server has been certified as a 128-bit secure server by VeriSign, data traveling between the user and the server is encrypted with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. With SSL, data that travels between the bank and customer is encrypted and can only be decrypted with the public and private key pair. In short, the bank's server issues a public key to the end user's browser and creates a temporary private key. These two keys are the only combination possible for that session. When the session is complete, the keys expire and the whole process starts over when a new end user makes a server session.

Router and Firewall

Requests must filter through a router and firewall before they are permitted to reach the server. A router, a piece of hardware, works in conjunction with the firewall, a piece of software, to block and direct traffic coming to the server. The configuration begins by disallowing ALL traffic and then opens holes only when necessary to process acceptable data requests, such as retrieving web pages or sending customer requests to the bank.

Using the above technologies, your Internet banking transactions are secure.

Copyright Notice and Disclosures

Use of Information

Any person is hereby authorized to view the information available from this web site for informational purposes only. No part of the information on this site can be redistributed, copied, or reproduced without prior written consent of First Federal.

Copyright Information

©2008 First Federal, Charleston, SC All Rights Reserved

All information in this site is protected by a compilation copyright in the United States of America based on U.S. Copyright Law (17 U.S.C. sec.101 et seq) and International Copyright Laws and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. Unless otherwise specified, no one has permission to copy or republish, in any form, any information found on this site.

 Disclaimer of Warranties

The information contained or accessed, and references to corporations, including their services and products, are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or error-free or uninterrupted service.


Descriptions of, or references to, products, services or publications within First Federal's web site do not imply endorsement of that product, service or publication. First Federal makes no warranty of any kind with respect to the subject matter included herein, the products listed herein, or the completeness or accuracy of the information. First Federal specifically disclaims all warranties, express, implied or otherwise, including without limitation, all warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

This publication could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes may be periodically made to the information herein.

 Disclosures

Disclosure Statement For Consumers: Loan information presented on the website of First Federal is in accordance with the Federal Reserve Truth in Lending Act (12CFR226). Interest rates displayed for loan products are based on an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) and may fluctuate at any time.

Deposit information presented on the website of First Federal is in accordance with the Federal Reserves Truth in Savings Act (12CFR230). Interest rates displayed for deposit products are based on Annual Percentage Yield (APY) and may fluctuate at any time.

Facts, data, & other information presented on First Federal website pages are provided directly by First Federal.

First Federal, our employees, officers, directors and shareholders are not responsible for typographical errors or errors of omission; and, we cannot guarantee that all information is accurate or complete.