BECAUSE YOUR TRUST IS SO IMPORTANT

Your trust is the cornerstone of our relationship.  That is why we work so diligently to safeguard your privacy.  The information that you provide us is kept in the strictest of confidence.  We have no intentions of selling personal information about our customers to third-party businesses. We are proud to make that commitment to you, because your trust is the foundation of our business.  The following privacy policy explains how we use and protect the information about our customers.  We ask that you read it carefully.

NOTICE OF YOUR FINANCIAL PRIVACY RIGHTS

We, our, and us, when used in this notice means Farmers & Merchants Bank & Trust.   This is our privacy notice for our customers.  When we use the words “you” and “your” we mean the following types of customers:

• Our consumer customers who have a continuing relationship by purchasing or holding financial products or services such as a(n):
• Deposit account
• Loan account
• Safe deposit box
• Financial, investment, or economic advisory services
• Brokerage account
• All persons who use our trust department
• All IRA accounts for which we act as custodian
• Former customers

We will tell you the sources of information we collect about you.  We will tell you what measures we take to secure that information.
We will tell you what information we share about you with other entities.  We will explain what your rights are, and how you can exercise them.  If you share an account relationship with someone else, such as a joint account holder or co-borrower, we suggest that you share this information with such persons to ensure that each of you is aware of our policy and your options. 
We first define some terms.

Nonpublic personal information means information about you that we collect in connection with providing a financial product or service to you.  Nonpublic personal information does not include information that is available from public sources, such as telephone directories or government records.  Hereafter, we will use the term “information” to mean nonpublic personal information as defined in this section.
An affiliate is a company we own or control, a company that owns or controls us, or a company that is owned or controlled by the same company that owns or controls us.  Ownership does not mean complete ownership, but means owning enough to have control.
A nonaffiliated third party is a person we do not employ or a company that is not an affiliate of ours.  This is known as a nonaffiliated third party, or simply, an “other party”.
Opt out means a choice you can make to prevent certain sharing of information.  We will explain how you can exercise this choice.

THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We collect information about you from the following sources:

• Information you give us on applications or other forms
• Information about your transactions with us
• Information about your transactions with our affiliates
• Information about your transactions with other parties
• Information from a consumer reporting agency
• Information we receive as a result of verifying customer information

THE CONFIDENTIALITY, SECURITY, AND INTEGRITY OF YOUR INFORMATION

We restrict access to information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.  We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect this information.

YOUR INFORMATION AND OUR AFFILIATES

We may disclose information about you to our affiliates.  Here are the kinds of information and the source of that information.
Transaction and experience information from our account records:

• Information about your transactions and experience with us, such as:
• Name
• Address
• Account balances
• Account activity
• Types of accounts
• Parties to the transaction
• Payment history
• Deposit history
• Transaction history

Federal law allows us to disclose the information listed above with our affiliates.  However, we will allow you to opt out of the disclosure of this information to our affiliates.
Other information not taken from transactions and experience:

• Information you give us on an application or other forms, such as:
• Social Security Number
• Assets
• Income
• Age
• Beneficiaries
• Investment objectives
• Information we receive from a credit reporting agency, such as:
• Creditworthiness
• Credit history

You may opt out of the disclosure of the information listed above.

Types of Affiliates
We may disclose information about you to the following types of affiliates:

• Financial service providers, such as:
• Securities broker-dealers

YOUR INFORMATION AND OTHER PARTIES

We will not disclose information about you to anyone except as disclosed in this policy or as permitted by law.  Examples of this might include disclosures necessary to service your account or prevent unauthorized transactions.

INFORMATION ABOUT FORMER CUSTOMERS

We have the same policy about disclosing information about former customers as we do about current customers.

YOUR RIGHT TO BLOCK THE DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

Affiliates.  We may disclose your information with our affiliates.  If you do not want us to disclose your information with our affiliates, you can block the disclosure of this information.  This is known as your right to “opt out”.
Your decision to block the disclosure of your information will apply to information collected from all products and services you receive from us.
If you have obtained one or more products or services jointly, an opt out instruction by one party is effective for all information we have collected about joint parties.  If one of you chooses to opt out, no information about any of the joint parties will be shared.
If you previously sent us an opt out, then we will apply your instruction to all the information you can now opt out of as described in this disclosure.  If you have joint accounts, your previous opt out will also apply to information about other parties to your accounts as described in this disclosure.
If you wish to opt out of the disclosure of your information, you may do so by calling this toll free number:  1-888-331-BANK.

ONLINE INFORMATION

When a customer or any other person visits our website – www.fmbanktrust.com – we may obtain certain information. The information we collect is subject to all of the safeguards we have described above, and is also subject to the following guidelines. F&M may collect information from visitors to our website in two ways; general information that we gather from your PC and specific information that you choose to provide to us. As a general policy, we do not automatically store or collect specific personal information concerning visitors to our website. We may, however, collect and store general information, such as:

• The name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, msn.com if you are connecting from the Microsoft Network or aol.com if you are connecting from America Online).
• The Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site (for example, www.Yahoo.com if you find us using the Yahoo search option.
• The specific link from which you accessed our website, if any (for example, an article link from our client e-mail newsletter).
• The type of web browsing software you are using to view our site (for example, Netscape or Explorer).
• The date and time you accessed our site.

If you choose to provide additional information about yourself, such as information on an application form, we will retain and use that information in accordance with our Privacy Notice principles.

Cookies

To provide you with better service and quicker access to the sections of our website of interest to you, we may use a “cookie”. A cookie is a small bit of information given to your browser by a website, which can later be retrieved. A cookie is a way for a website to recognize whether you have visited the site before. It cannot be read by a website other than the one that “set” the cookie. We may use cookies for administrative purposes, such as where you are able to customize the information you see. Recording cookies at such points makes your online experience easier and faster. Most of the cookies set last only through a single visit. They do not read your hard drive or contain any information that you have not already provided. None will contain information that will enable anyone to contact you via telephone or e-mail. Your web browser can be set to inform you when cookies are set or to prevent them from being set.

E-mail

We may preserve the content of your e-mail, your e-mail address and our response so that we can better serve you. Depending on the content of your email, we may be required by laws and regulations to keep this information. If you send an e-mail to us, please remember that e-mail is not secure against interception.
If your e-mail contains information that is very sensitive or includes personal information such as account numbers, credit card numbers or your Social Security number, you may wish to consider sending this information in another way, either by telephone or mail.

Children’s Privacy

Our website is directed to a general audience. We do not knowingly solicit or collect personal information from children on our site.