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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 30 June 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Stance Finance collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use our website and application (the "Service"). We are committed to handling your information lawfully and transparently, in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA").

Please read this together with our Terms of Service. By using the Service, you agree to the practices described here.

1. Who we are

The Service is operated by Brian Bashala, trading as Stance Finance, a sole proprietor based in South Africa (the "responsible party" under POPIA, referred to here as "we", "us", or "Stance").

For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, contact us at support@stancefinance.co.za.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers personal information we process about users of the Service. Stance is an educational tax-information tool. It is not a registered tax practitioner, financial-services provider, or law firm, and using it does not create a professional advisory relationship. This affects the nature of the information we hold and what we do with it.

3. The information we collect

Information you give us directly:

  • Account details — your name, email address, and password (your password is stored in hashed form by our authentication provider; we never see it in plain text).
  • Tax profile — figures you choose to save, such as your age band, annual income, retirement contributions, number of medical-aid members, and PAYE paid. These are financial details about you.
  • Tax history — when you update your tax profile, we save a snapshot of the resulting figures so you can see how your position changes over time.
  • Documents — any tax documents you upload to your private vault (for example IRP5s, certificates, or assessments).
  • Conversations — the questions you ask the AI advisor and the descriptions you provide to our estimators, together with the responses generated.

Information we collect automatically:

  • Usage data — how you use the Service, such as the number of questions asked and when, used to apply fair-use limits and improve the Service.
  • Technical data — limited technical information necessary to deliver and secure the Service, such as your session and basic device or browser information.

Payment information:

  • If you subscribe, payments are processed by our payment provider. We receive confirmation of your subscription status and a payment token, but we do not collect or store your full card details — those are handled by the payment provider on their own systems.

We do not knowingly collect special categories of personal information beyond the financial details you choose to provide, and we ask that you do not upload information you do not need to store.

4. Why we use your information

We use your personal information to:

  • create and manage your account and authenticate you;
  • provide the Service's features — calculators, estimates, your tax health score, document analysis, and saved history;
  • generate AI responses to your questions and documents;
  • apply fair-use limits and prevent abuse;
  • process your subscription and manage billing;
  • communicate with you about your account and support requests;
  • maintain the security, integrity, and reliability of the Service; and
  • comply with our legal obligations.

5. Our lawful basis

Under POPIA, we process your information on the basis of: your consent (which you may withdraw); the performance of our agreement with you to provide the Service; our legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving the Service; and compliance with the law. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, though this may affect your ability to use parts of the Service.

6. How AI processing works

Core features of the Service use third-party artificial-intelligence providers. When you ask the advisor a question, run the smart estimator, or analyse a document, the relevant content is sent to our AI provider to generate a response, and returned to you. Under the API terms we use, this content is processed to produce your result and is not used to train the providers' models. We use AI to assist you, but its outputs are educational estimates and explanations, not professional tax advice, and may contain errors — you should verify anything material.

7. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers ("operators" under POPIA) who process it on our behalf, under contract and only as needed to run the Service. These currently include:

  • Our database, authentication, and storage provider (Supabase), which hosts your account, saved figures, history, conversations, and uploaded documents. (Confirm your data-hosting region — typically the EU.)
  • Our AI providers (Anthropic, and where applicable OpenAI for search indexing of tax-law sources), which process your questions and documents to generate responses.
  • Our hosting provider (Vercel), which serves the application.
  • Our payment provider (PayFast), which processes subscription payments.
  • Our email provider, used for support correspondence.

We may also disclose information where required by law, to protect our rights or the safety of others, or as part of a business transfer, in which case we will protect your information consistently with this policy.

8. Cross-border transfers

Some of our service providers are located outside South Africa, including in the European Union and the United States. Where your information is transferred across borders, we take reasonable steps, as required by POPIA, to ensure it remains protected to a comparable standard — including by using providers that are bound by appropriate contractual data-protection terms.

9. How we protect your information

We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to safeguard your information, including encryption of data in transit, access controls that restrict your data to your own account, private storage for uploaded documents, and restricted administrative access. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we work to protect your information appropriately given its sensitivity.

10. How long we keep your information

We keep your personal information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. When you delete your account, we remove your associated data — your profile, saved figures, history, conversations, and uploaded documents — from our active systems. Copies may persist briefly in routine encrypted backups before being overwritten on their normal cycle. We may retain limited information where the law requires us to.

11. Your rights

Under POPIA, you have the right to:

  • access the personal information we hold about you;
  • correct or update inaccurate information;
  • delete your information and account;
  • object to certain processing, and withdraw consent where we rely on it;
  • request that we restrict processing in certain circumstances.

You can exercise the main rights yourself in the Service: the Security & data page lets you download your data and permanently delete your account. For any other request, contact us at support@stancefinance.co.za and we will respond within a reasonable time.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa). Their current contact details are published at inforegulator.org.za.

12. Children

The Service is intended for adults (18 and older) and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with information, please contact us so we can remove it.

13. Cookies

We use only the essential cookies needed to keep you signed in and to operate the Service securely. We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the date above and, where appropriate, notify you. Your continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised policy.

15. Contact us

For any privacy question or request, contact:

Stance Finance (Brian Bashala) Email: support@stancefinance.co.za


This Privacy Policy is provided for transparency about our data practices and does not constitute legal advice. Stance Finance is an educational tool and is not a registered tax practitioner.

Stance Finance · Sandton, Johannesburg · support@stancefinance.co.za