At Sterling Bank, maintaining our customers' trust and confidence is of utmost importance. The U.S. Congress recently enacted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act) which requires banks and other providers of financial services and products to provide written notice of their privacy policies. While this disclosure requirement is new, our commitment to protecting your privacy is not. We will continue to safeguard the privacy of the information you have entrusted to us.

This notice provides you with information on how Sterling Bank collects and uses your personal customer information. The notice also details how we maintain the confidentiality and accuracy of certain information. Additionally, this notice details how you can limit the sharing of your nonpublic personal information.

We collect nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

• Information we receive from you on applications or other forms;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others; and
• Information we receive from consumer reporting agencies.

We may disclose the following kinds of nonpublic personal information about you:

• Information we receive from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others, such as your account balance, payment history and parties to transactions; and
• Information we receive from a consumer reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness and credit history.

We may disclose nonpublic personal information about you to the following types of third parties:

• Financial service providers, such as mortgage bankers, securities broker-dealers and insurance agents;
• Non-financial companies, such as retailers, direct marketers, airlines and publishers;
• Others, such as non-profit organizations.

We may also disclose nonpublic personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties as permitted by law.

We may disclose all of the information we collect as described above to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements.

Unless you tell us not to, we may share with companies in our corporate family information about you including:

• Information we obtain from your application, such as your name, address, social security number, assets and income;
• Information we obtain from a consumer reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness and your credit history;
• Information we obtain to verify representations made by you, such as your open lines of credit; and
• Information we obtain from a person or company regarding its employment, credit, or other relationship with you, such as your employment history.

Companies in our corporate family who may receive this information are:

• Financial service providers, such as mortgage bankers, broker-dealers and insurance agents; and
• Non-financial companies, such as retailers, direct marketers, airlines and publishers.

If you prefer that we not disclose nonpublic personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties, you may opt out of those disclosures, that is, you may direct us not to make those disclosures (other than disclosures permitted by law). If you wish to opt out of disclosures to nonaffiliated third parties, you may download and complete the Notification of Opt Out (PDF 75KB) form and mail it to: Sterling Bank, Opt Out Request, Attention: Compliance Department, P.O. Box 40333, Houston, Texas 77240-0333. Please note that Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to download the form. Click here to download a version of Adobe Acrobat.

We believe it is vitally important that the information we maintain about you is as accurate as possible. We maintain internal controls and procedures to ensure the accuracy of your information. Should you have a question or concern about the accuracy or completeness of your information, please contact us and we will take immediate steps to correct the information or amend our records.

We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to only those employees who need such information to perform their job responsibilities. In addition, we maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations and standards to guard your nonpublic personal information.

If you decide to close your account or should your relationship with us be terminated for some other reason, we will continue to treat and safeguard your information as described in this notice.

Sterling Bank is chartered under the laws of the State of Texas and by state law is subject to regulatory oversight by the Texas Department of Banking. Any consumer wishing to file a complaint against Sterling Bank should contact the Texas Department of Banking through one of the means indicated below:

In Person or U.S. Mail:
2601 North Lamar Boulevard
Suite 300
Austin, Texas 78705-4294

Telephone:
877.276.5554

Fax:
512.475.1313

Email:
consumer.complaints@banking.state.tx.us

Website:
www.banking.state.tx.us