At Hamilton State Bank, our customers are our top priority. Our management and staff have worked hard to gain your trust and confidence, as an institution dedicated to servicing your financial needs. As part of our ongoing commitment to earn your trust in our organization, we recognize the importance of maintaining security and confidentiality when it comes to safeguarding personal financial information we collect on our customers.

We are required to collect certain categories of personal financial information in order to 1) conduct business and service our customer, 2) meet certain regulatory requirements, and 3) continue to offer the products and services you need to meet your banking needs. However, we want to personally reassure you that at Hamilton State Bank, we do not - under any circumstances - rent or sell personal customer information to any outside companies. And, under no circumstances do we provide account or personal information to third parties for the purpose of marketing or direct mail marketing of any non-bank products or service.

We only share certain information with carefully select companies that provide support services (i.e. mailing services) to aid in marketing Hamilton State Bank's services to you. These companies are contractually required to adhere to our standards of information security and confidentiality and cannot use this information for any purpose other than the intended service.

We value the trust that our customers place in our organization. It is the lifeblood of our institution. At Hamilton State Bank, we collect only the information required to serve our customers to the best of our ability. Maintaining the security of that information and using it only to improve our customer relationships are of utmost importance to us. Please read the following information carefully.

We've prepared this policy to explain what types of information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we may share it. It coves all department, products and services of Hamilton State Bank, including E-Com banking.

We want you to know that Hamilton State Bank uses information we know about you responsibly to:

This policy statement takes precedence over any previous privacy policies issued by Hamilton State Bank.

If you apply for a loan of a new account: We ask you to provide information about your financial status, such as employment, income, monthly expenses, and assets. In most cases, you give us this information yourself, in person, by mail, or through our web site. I f we need to know about your credit and repayment history, we use third-party sources such as consumer reporting agencies and other creditors.

Once you become a customer: We maintain information about your transactions with Hamilton State Bank, including account balances, repayment history, and other information. Because it is important to know what types of services may be most valuable to you, we also obtain demographic and household information about current and prospective customers from specialized marketing information firms.

Most of the information we collect is used for only one purpose; to help us deliver the services you have requested, easily wand efficiently. It may also permit us to design and offer specific products and services that we believe will be of interest to you.

By making customer information available to carefully selected third-party firms, we're able to provide better service and offer financial solutions we believe you will value. In fact, some products and services are available only if you allow us to share your information.

For example, if you have chosen to have our credit card or electronic Bill Pay, w must share information with that partner in order for the service to function.

Within Hamilton State Bank employees are permitted access to the information they need to perform their jobs. We maintain strict internal policies against unauthorized disclosure or use of customer information. We also maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect this information.

As a diversified financial services company, Hamilton State Bank offers a wide array of financial product and services you can use to meet your financial goals such as: e-com Banking, Bill Pay, Checking Account, Money Market Account, Certificates of Deposit, Consumer Loan, Home Equity, Credit Card, Business Lending, Mortgage Lending, and many others.

From time to time, we carefully select business partners to provide our customers with specialized financial services such as check ordering, credit cards or insurance. Although these partners are not owned by or affiliated with Hamilton State Bank, they work closely with us to help us meet all of your financial needs. If appropriate, we may disclose to these partners certain information such as:

Our partners must agree to strictly safeguard the confidentiality of customer information, and they are not allowed to disclose this information, and they are not allowed to disclose this information to anyone else without our permission.

At times, we enter arrangements with companies whose expertise is essential for our own services to function properly. For example, we work with specialized firms that enable online banking, and generate account statements for Hamilton State Bank customers. As permitted by law, we disclose only the information they need to perform these functions. As with all our business partners, these companies are required to safeguard your information and use it only for authorized purposes. These companies are not permitted to use this information or to contact our customers for any other reason than providing the specific products and services intended.

Consumer reporting agencies: In accordance with standard banking industry practice, and as allowed under federal and state law, Hamilton State Bank routinely provides data about customer loan repayment and other transactions to these agencies and other creditors.

Certain federal and state statutes may require us to disclose information about you. For example, if you are involved in litigation with a third party, we may be ordered to provide information to a court to the other litigant. In these circumstances, only the specific information required by law, subpoena, or court order will be disclosed.

A note about former customers' information: Although we generally do not solicit customers who have closed their accounts with us, we may share their information with marketing partners, and other third parties as described above.

Our Internet web site, www.HamiltonStateBank.com invites you to read our privacy practices. We also usually ask for some personal information when you request assistance from us. This allows us to respond more quickly to your questions, and possibly suggest other services we think you may be interested in. To protect this information, we maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations.

When you submit this private data to us over the Internet, our internal security standard guard it in several ways. Encryption helps protect it form interception by a third party. The pass codes and other safety features we've installed also help ensure that the information you provide us remains safe and secure. When you visit the Hamilton State Bank website, we may also collect and store information about your visit on an anonymous, aggregate basis. This information may include the time and length of your visit, the pages you look at on our sites, and the sire you visited just before coming to ours. We may also record the name of our Internet service provider. We use this information only to measure site activity and to develop ideas for improving our sites.

No one has access to this information except employees who provide services to you. In addition, you should know about these online information management tools tat may offer additional convenience.

To simplify your online experience with us, we may place a "cookie" on your PC while you are visiting our web site. (A cookie is a piece of information that our web server stores on your computer's hard drive and retrieves later.) This helps us recognize you the next time you visit our site, saving you the bother of re-entering a password or other personal information each time. We do not use cookies to record information that will enable anyone to contact you via telephone, email, or regular mail.

As technology continues to advance, you can be sure Hamilton State Bank will provide the most up-to-date safeguards possible to keep your personal financial information confidential and secure. Your trust is important to us - and we are committed to protecting your privacy, whether you do business with us on the Internet, in person, or via telephone or mail. As always, we thank you for choosing Hamilton State Bank.

If you have question, concerns, or comments about our privacy practices or the way your information is maintained and used, we'd like to hear from you. Please write to:

Hamilton State Bank
1907 Hwy 211
Hoschton, GA 30548