Terms of Use

1. About these terms

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Circle Software Solutions Limited (“Circle”, “we”, “us”), a company registered in Zambia with its registered office at 23 Drongo Court, Long Acres, Lusaka, Zambia. They govern your use of Credit Watch, our website and everything we offer through them (the “Service”).

By creating an account, starting a free trial, or using the Service, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service for a business, you confirm that you have authority to bind that business, and “you” includes it. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

The Service is offered to businesses and users in many countries. Where the law of your country gives you rights that cannot be removed by agreement, these Terms do not remove them.

2. What the service is

Credit Watch is software that lending businesses use to manage clients, loans, repayments, collections, savings, accounting and reporting. We provide the software and hosting. We are an independent service provider.

• We are not a lender, bank, payment institution, credit bureau or financial adviser, and we do not lend money, hold borrowers’ funds, or take part in any loan agreement between a lender and its customers.
• We do not guarantee that any borrower is who they say they are, that a loan will be repaid, or that any credit decision, score or report is correct or suitable for your decision.
• The lender is responsible for every loan it makes and for the products and services its customers pay for.

3. Accounts and eligibility

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract.
• Give us accurate and current information, and keep it up to date.
• Keep your sign-in details secret and turn on two-factor sign-in where it is offered. You are responsible for everything done through your account and for the users you add, including their access rights.
• Tell us straight away if you think your account has been misused.

4. Your responsibilities as a lender

If you use the Service to lend, you alone are responsible for:

• holding every licence, registration and approval your lending activity needs in each place you operate, and following the laws and regulators’ rules that apply to you, including lending, consumer protection, interest and fee limits, anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules, tax, and collections conduct;
• the terms you offer, the interest, fees and charges you set, and the disclosures and contracts you give your customers;
• checking your customers’ identity and affordability, and every approval, rejection, scoring or collection decision, including decisions you make with the help of reports, credit-bureau results, scoring or the AI assistant;
• having a lawful basis, and where required your customers’ consent, for the information you record and the messages you send them (SMS, email, WhatsApp and calls), and for sharing information with credit bureaus;
• treating borrowers fairly, dealing with their complaints, and never harassing or threatening them when collecting.

Templates, sample wording and default settings in the Service are starting points only. They are not legal advice. Have them checked for your own business and country.

5. Your data and privacy

• Your data stays yours. You own the information you and your users put into the Service, including your customers’ records (“Customer Data”).
• You give us permission to host, process, copy and transmit Customer Data only as needed to provide, secure and support the Service for you, and as the law requires.
• For Customer Data, you are the data controller and we are your data processor, as explained in our Privacy Policy. We will sign a data processing agreement if your law requires one.
• You can export your data from the Service while your account is active, and for a limited period after it ends (see section 11).
• We do not sell Customer Data, and we do not use it to advertise to the people in it.

6. Acceptable use

You agree that you and your users will not:

• break any law or regulation, or use the Service to help anyone else do so;
• use the Service for fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, or lending that is predatory, deceptive or unlawful where it is made or collected;
• lend to or deal with any person, entity or country that is subject to sanctions that apply to you or to us, including those of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom or Zambia;
• record or upload information you have no right to hold, including stolen, forged or misused identity documents, or personal information obtained unlawfully;
• send spam, unsolicited marketing, threats or abusive messages to customers or anyone else;
• try to get into accounts, data or systems that are not yours, probe or test our security without our written permission, or interfere with the Service, other customers or our network;
• copy, resell, rent out, reverse-engineer or build a competing service from the Service, or use automated tools to scrape it, except through our published API within its limits;
• upload malware, or content that is illegal, hateful, obscene, or infringes someone else’s rights;
• use the Service in a way that could damage our reputation, or that exposes us or our providers to penalties, claims or loss.

If you break this section we may warn you, remove content, limit or suspend your access, end the agreement, report the matter to authorities or affected third parties where the law allows, and recover our reasonable losses and costs.

7. Trials, plans and payment

• Free trial. New accounts may start with a free trial, with no payment details needed. When it ends you must choose a plan and pay to keep using the Service.
• Plans and prices. Plans, features and prices are shown on our website or in your account. You pay for the plan you choose, monthly or yearly in advance, plus any taxes that apply.
• Late payment. If a payment is overdue we may give you a short grace period, then restrict or suspend access until it is paid. Your data is kept for the period in section 11.
• Changes to prices. We may change prices for future periods by giving you notice in advance. If you do not agree, you can cancel before the new price starts.
• Cancelling and refunds. You can cancel at any time and use the Service until the end of the period you have paid for. Fees already paid are not refunded, except where the law requires it or we say otherwise in writing.
• Third-party costs. Costs charged by others, such as SMS and WhatsApp messages, payment gateway fees and credit-bureau checks, are separate and are your responsibility.

8. AI assistant and third-party services

Some features use third parties or artificial intelligence, for example the AI assistant, messaging services, payment gateways, credit bureaus and screening lists. You choose whether to switch them on and you set them up. When you do:

• AI replies can be wrong or incomplete. Check anything important before you rely on it. The assistant does not approve loans and you remain responsible for its use with your customers.
• The terms and privacy practices of the third party apply to your use of its service, and you are responsible for any account, key or fee you have with it.
• We are not responsible for third-party services, their availability, or what they do with information once they have it, except as stated in our Privacy Policy.

9. Availability and support

We work to keep the Service available, secure and backed up, but we cannot promise it will always be uninterrupted or error-free. We may carry out maintenance, improve or change features, and, with notice where we can, remove features. Features marked as beta or preview are offered as they are. Support is provided through the channels we publish for your plan.

10. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, text, graphics and the Credit Watch and Circle names and logos, belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by law. While you comply with these Terms and pay the fees due, we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service for your own business. You may not use our names or logos without our written permission. If you give us ideas or feedback, we may use them without owing you anything. You keep all rights in your own names, logos and Customer Data.

11. Suspension and termination

• You can stop using the Service and close your account at any time.
• We may suspend or end your access if you break these Terms, do not pay, put the Service or other customers at risk, or if we must by law. Where it is reasonable we will tell you first.
• After your account ends, you can export your data for 30 days, unless the law or a dispute requires otherwise. After that we delete or anonymise it, except what we must keep by law, and backups are overwritten in the normal course.
• Sections that by their nature should continue after the agreement ends will continue, including payment, intellectual property, disclaimers, liability, indemnity and governing law.

12. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent the law allows, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We give no warranties, express or implied, including about quality, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy of reports, scores or AI output, or that the Service will meet your needs or be free from errors, delays or interruptions. You use the Service at your own risk and are responsible for your own business and lending decisions.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, special, incidental, consequential or punitive loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, data or business, or for loan losses, bad debts, or the acts of borrowers or third parties, even if we were told they might happen. Our total liability to you for all claims arising from the Service in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, such as liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

14. Indemnity

You will defend us and cover our losses, damages and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from claims by others that come from: your use of the Service; your breach of these Terms or the law; your lending, collection or marketing practices; Customer Data you supply or the way you use it; or your infringement of someone else’s rights. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and reasonably co-operate with you.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Zambia. We will both try to settle any dispute in good faith first: write to us as shown below, and we will try to resolve it within 30 days. If that fails, the courts of Zambia will have jurisdiction, except that either of us may ask any court for urgent protection of its rights, and any mandatory rights you have under the law where you live remain unaffected.

16. General

• Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the new version here with its date and, for important changes, notify you on the website or by email. If you keep using the Service after the change takes effect, you accept it. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Service.
• Notices. We may give you notice by email, in the Service or on this website. Send notices to us as shown below.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or duties under these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours, for example in a merger, acquisition or sale of the business.
• Events beyond our control. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by things outside our reasonable control, such as natural disasters, war, strikes, power or network failures, or actions of governments or third-party providers.
• If part is unenforceable. If any part of these Terms is found invalid, the rest continues, and the invalid part will be replaced by the closest valid one.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we have not given it up. A waiver is effective only in writing.
• Whole agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any order, plan or data processing agreement we sign with you are the entire agreement about the Service and replace earlier understandings. No one else has rights under it.

17. Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Contact Circle Software Solutions Limited, 23 Drongo Court, Long Acres, Lusaka, Zambia:

• Email: support@creditwatch.online