Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

SOW is a personal finance application that helps people in Nigeria organize bank accounts, transactions, spending, budgets, savings goals, investments, financial health information, and optional AI-generated insights.

This Privacy Policy explains what information SOW processes, why it is processed, how optional bank-import features work, and the choices available to you. It applies to the SOW mobile application, website, and related services.

2. Information you provide

Depending on the features you use, you may provide your name, email address, phone number, authentication information, profile information, bank-account details, transaction details, budgets, savings goals, investments, support messages, AI prompts, and identity-verification information.

You choose whether to use optional features such as bank linking, manual bank accounts, SMS transaction detection, PDF statement import, AI assistance, notifications, community features, or customer support chat.

3. Android SMS transaction detection

SOW's SMS transaction detection is an optional Android-only feature. It is not required to use SOW. It requires your explicit Android READ_SMS permission and is unavailable on iOS because iOS does not expose SMS inbox access to apps.

When you start a scan or allow the Android listener to operate, SOW reads inbox messages on your device, looks for messages that resemble Nigerian bank transaction alerts, and parses possible credits or debits, amounts, balances, sender/account hints, descriptions, and dates. SOW does not need to read your entire inbox for this feature's purpose; it filters for bank-like senders or financial alert content and ignores messages it cannot parse as a transaction alert.

Parsed pending items, including the original SMS text, are staged locally on your device in app storage so you can review them. SOW does not automatically submit every detected message. You select the bank account and category and explicitly submit an item. On submission, SOW sends the transaction fields needed to create the record and may update the selected account balance. The raw SMS is not needed for the normal review submission.

You can deny or later revoke SMS permission in Android settings, stop using the scan/listener, delete pending items, or use SOW without this feature. Revoking permission may prevent new SMS alerts from being detected but does not delete transaction records already created in SOW; those records can be deleted through the app where the feature supports deletion or by contacting us.

4. PDF bank statement import

Bank Statement import is user-initiated. You select a PDF from your device and choose the bank account it belongs to. SOW accepts PDF statements up to 20 MB and uploads the selected file to the authenticated SOW backend for text extraction and transaction parsing.

The backend creates a private review session containing the uploaded file name and parsed transaction data such as transaction type, amount, balance when available, description, date, and the source line extracted from the statement. The app shows the parsed items for your review; it does not silently post them to your account.

You decide whether to submit or dismiss each parsed item. Submitted items become bank transaction records and may update the selected account balance. An active statement session can be cleared from the app. Uploading a scanned or unreadable PDF may fail because the current parser requires readable statement text.

5. Bank connections and financial data

SOW can support linked bank accounts through a banking connection provider and can also support manually entered bank accounts. When you use a connection flow, the relevant provider may collect and transmit credentials or account data under its own terms and privacy policy; SOW does not ask you to give SOW your online-banking password in the app.

SOW stores account and transaction information needed to display balances, categorize spending, calculate financial-health summaries, manage budgets and goals, and provide reports. Do not submit information for an account or person you are not authorized to manage.

6. How we use information

We use information to create and secure accounts; provide bank, transaction, budget, savings, investment, report, support, and AI features; verify identity where required; detect abuse and fraud; respond to support requests; maintain service reliability; communicate important service messages; and comply with legal obligations.

AI prompts and relevant financial context may be processed to produce an insight or answer when you use an AI feature. AI output is informational and should not be treated as financial, investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice.

7. Service providers and disclosures

We may share information with vendors that help us operate SOW, such as authentication, hosting, database, storage, analytics, banking-connection, identity-verification, payment, communications, customer-support, and AI infrastructure providers. These providers receive only information needed for their service and are expected to protect it under applicable agreements.

We do not sell your personal information. We may disclose information when required by law, to respond to lawful requests, prevent fraud or security abuse, protect users or SOW, enforce our terms, or support a business transfer such as a merger or acquisition.

8. Local storage, security, and retention

Some information, including pending SMS review items and processed-message de-duplication data, is stored locally on your device. Removing the app or clearing its storage may remove local pending data, but it does not necessarily delete server-side account or transaction data.

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, including authenticated requests and encrypted transport where supported. No online service or device storage method can be guaranteed completely secure.

We retain information for as long as needed to provide the service, maintain financial records, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, comply with legal or regulatory obligations, and enforce agreements. Retention periods can differ by data type and legal requirements.

9. Your choices and rights

You can manage optional permissions in your device settings, stop using optional imports, edit or delete supported accounts and transactions in the app, clear an active statement session, and contact us about access, correction, portability, restriction, objection, or deletion requests where those rights apply.

To request account deletion or data deletion, email contact@sow.services with enough information for us to verify the request. We may retain limited information where required by law, for security, or for legitimate recordkeeping. We will explain any material limitation.

10. Children

SOW is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided information, contact us so we can investigate and delete it where appropriate.

11. Changes and contact

We may update this policy when our services or legal obligations change. We will publish the revised policy with a new effective date. For privacy questions or requests, contact contact@sow.services. SOW website: https://www.sow.co.