Privacy Policy


May 2018

PIMCO considers customer privacy to be a fundamental aspect of its relationship with clients. PIMCO is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and security of its current, prospective and former clients' non-public personal information. PIMCO has developed policies that are designed to protect this confidentiality, while allowing client needs to be served.

In the course of providing its clients with products and services, PIMCO and certain of its service providers may obtain non-public personal information about its clients. This information may come from sources such as account applications and other forms, from other written, electronic or verbal correspondence, from client transactions, from client brokerage or financial advisory firm, financial adviser or consultant, and/or from information captured on applicable websites.

As a matter of policy, PIMCO does not disclose any non-public personal information provided by its clients or gathered by PIMCO to non-affiliated third parties, except as required or permitted by law or for PIMCO's everyday business purposes, such as to process transactions or service a client account. As is common in the industry, non-affiliated companies may from time to time be used to provide certain services, such as preparing and mailing prospectuses, reports, account statements and other information, conducting research on client satisfaction, and gathering shareholder proxies. PIMCO (or its affiliates) may also retain non-affiliated companies to market its products, and may enter into joint marketing arrangements with them and other companies. These companies may have access to client personal and account information, but are permitted to use the information solely to provide the specific service or as otherwise permitted by law. PIMCO may also provide client personal and account information to their brokerage or financial advisory firm and/or to their financial adviser or consultant.

PIMCO reserves the right to disclose or report personal or account information to non-affiliated third parties in limited circumstances where PIMCO believes in good faith that disclosure is required under law, to cooperate with regulators or law enforcement authorities, to protect its rights or property, or upon reasonable request by any of its mutual funds in which clients have invested. In addition, PIMCO may disclose information about a client or their accounts to a non-affiliated third party at their request or if the client consents in writing to the disclosure.

PIMCO may share client information with its affiliates in connection with servicing a client account, and subject to applicable law may provide a client with information about products and services that PIMCO or its affiliates believe may be of interest to the client. The information that PIMCO may share may include, for example, information about PIMCO’s or its mutual funds' experiences and transactions with a client, their participation in its mutual funds or other investment programs, their ownership of certain types of accounts (such as IRAs), information captured on applicable websites, or other data about their accounts, subject to applicable law. PIMCO’s affiliates, in turn, are not permitted to share client information with non-affiliated entities, except as required or permitted by law.

PIMCO takes seriously the obligation to safeguard a client’s non-public personal information. In addition to this policy, PIMCO has implemented procedures that are designed to restrict access to a client’s non-public personal information to its personnel who need to know that information to perform their jobs, such as servicing a client’s account or notifying a client of new products and services. Physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards are in place to guard a client’s non-public personal information.

Websites maintained by PIMCO or its service providers may use a variety of technologies to collect information that help PIMCO and its service providers understand how the website is used. Information collected from a client’s web browser (including small files stored on a client’s device that are commonly referred to as “cookies”) allow the websites to recognize a client’s web browser and help to personalize and improve a client’s user experience and enhance navigation of the website. In addition, PIMCO or certain of its service providers may use third parties to place advertisements for PIMCO products on other websites, including banner advertisements, as well as to ensure that messages displayed on PIMCO’s websites are relevant to its clients. . Such third parties may collect anonymous information through the use of cookies, action tags (such as web beacons) and/or container tags. The information these third parties collect is generally limited to technical and web navigation information, such as a client’s IP address, web pages visited and browser type, and does not include personally identifiable information such as name, address, phone number or email address. If a client is a registered user of PIMCO’s website, PIMCO or its service providers or third party firms engaged by PIMCO or its service providers may collect or share the information a client submits to us, which may include personally identifiable information. This information can be useful to PIMCO when assessing and offering services and website features for a client. A client can change their cookie preferences by changing the setting on their web browser to delete or reject cookies. If a client deletes or rejects cookies, some website pages may not function properly. PIMCO does not look for web browser "do not track" requests.

From time to time, PIMCO may update or revise this privacy policy. If there are changes to the terms of this privacy policy, documents containing the revised policy on the relevant website will be updated.

Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice applies to both PIMCO Europe Ltd (“PEL”) and PIMCO Europe GmbH (“PDG”) unless stated otherwise. "We", "our" "us", or “PIMCO” means PEL and PDG and other companies in PIMCO Group which includes its subsidiaries, affiliates and their respective parent and subsidiary companies (“PIMCO Group”). For the purposes of data protection law, we are a data controller in respect of your personal data. We collect and use your personal data and where applicable this may include information related to your spouse/partner, directors, partners and owners (your “representatives”). PIMCO is responsible for ensuring that it uses your personal data in compliance with data protection law.

PIMCO considers customer privacy to be a fundamental aspect of its relationship with clients. PIMCO is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and security of its current, prospective and former clients' personal information. PIMCO has developed policies that are designed to protect this confidentiality, while allowing client needs to be served.

This notice applies to any personal data we receive from you, create or obtain from other sources and explains how it will be used by us. It is important that you take the time to read and understand this notice so that you understand how we will use your personal data and your rights in relation to your personal data.

Personal data that we collect from you

We will collect and use the following personal data about you and your representatives:

Information you give us

  • This is personal information about you and any other individuals (such as representatives or advisors) that you give us by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. The information you give us may include your, and your representatives’, name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial information, and identification records (including your nationality).
  • You should ensure that in respect of any information you provide us with, which does not relate to you (for example, information about your representatives), you have obtained the necessary consent in order to disclose such information.

Information we collect or generate about you and your representatives

  • We sometimes record telephone conversations and monitor email communications to resolve complaints, improve our service and in order to comply with our legal and regulatory requirements. The information we capture in this way may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial information, and identification records (including your nationality).
  • We generate data to improve our service and to manage, administer and take decisions about the accounts and holdings we provide. The information we capture in this way may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial information, and identification records (including your nationality).
  • In the course of operating our websites, we may collect and process the following information about you:
    • Information that you provide by filling in forms on our websites at either www.pimco.co.uk and www.pimco.de (and associated sites) (together, “our website”). The personal information you provide in this way may include your full name, title, telephone number and email address.
    • Information about when you use our services. We use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit our website. We may, for example, collect information about the type of device you use to access the websites, your IP address and your geographic location, the operating system and version, your browser type, the content you view and features you access on our websites, the web pages and the search terms you enter on our websites.
    • Information when you report a problem with our website.
    • Details of your visits to our website and the resources that you access, for example we may collect information about the content you view and features you access on our websites, the web pages and the search terms you enter on our websites.

Information we receive from other sources

  • Verifying your identity – We will use information provided by third parties (e.g. fraud prevention agencies) when verifying your identity and when carrying out anti money laundering checks. Such information may include some details about any criminal convictions and any allegations regarding criminal activity that relate to you, as well as details of your status as a politically exposed person. It may also include identification records (including your nationality).
  • Intermediaries – We may receive information from dealers, brokers and introducers for the purposes of entering in to and administering your agreement. This may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial information, and identification records.
  • Publically available information - We may obtain information about you from publically available databases, such as social media sites. The information we capture in this way may include your name, employer, email address and phone number.

How we use your personal data

Your personal data may be used by us in the following ways:

Background checks

  • to verify your identity as part of our client onboarding process;
  • in order to detect and prevent fraud and money laundering;
  • in order to identify politically exposed persons.

Products & Services

  • to ensure content from our website is presented in the most effective way for you and your computer;
  • in order to manage and administer accounts and holdings we provide to our clients;
  • in order to provide you with information, products or services you may request from us;
  • to record and monitor your use of our website or our other online services for our business purposes which may include analysis of usage and measurement of site performance;
  • where you have provided your consent to do so, to send promotional information about our products and services via the methods you specify (for example by email or post).

Legal bases pursuant to which we process your personal data

We process your personal data pursuant to the following legal bases:

  • in order to perform our obligations under our contract with you;
  • to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights and / or for the purpose of (or in connection with) legal proceedings;
  • for the prevention of fraud; and
  • the use of your personal data as described is necessary for our legitimate business interests such as:
    • to enable us to improve the website and deliver a better and more personalised service to you;
    • enforcing the terms and conditions of any agreement we have with our clients;
    • the recovery of outstanding debts existing under an agreement with our clients;
    • to send promotional information about our products and services via the methods you specify (where you have provided consent to do so).

Sharing your personal data

As a matter of policy, PIMCO does not disclose any personal information provided by its clients or gathered by PIMCO to non-affiliated third parties, except as required or permitted by law or for PIMCO's everyday business purposes, such as to process transactions or service a client account. We may disclose your personal data within the PIMCO Group and to third party service providers in the circumstances described below:

  • to ensure the delivery of products or services to our clients;
  • to ensure the safety and security of our data;
  • to assess compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, and internal policies and procedures across our business; and
  • for internal research and statistical analysis purposes.

We will take steps to ensure that the personal data is accessed only by personnel that have a need to do so for the purposes described in this notice.

We may also share your personal data outside of the PIMCO Group:

  • in order to enforce or apply the terms of use and other agreements our clients have with us;
  • any distributor, broker or introducer of an agreement with us;
  • if we sell any of our business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective buyer for due diligence purposes;
  • if we are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about you will be disclosed to the third party buyer; and
  • to third party agents or for the purposes of providing services to us.

These third parties will be subject to confidentiality requirements and they will only use your personal data as described in this privacy notice.

We may also share your personal data outside of the PIMCO Group to the extent required by law, for example if we are under a duty to disclose your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation (including disclosures made to regulators and Companies House), and to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

Transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area

The information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored on our secure servers in the European Economic Area (“EEA”). However, from time to time, your personal data may be transferred to, stored in, or accessed from a destination outside the EEA. It may also be processed by staff operating outside of the EEA who work for a company in the PIMCO Group or for one of our suppliers.

Where we transfer your personal data outside the EEA, we will ensure that it is protected in a manner that is consistent with how your personal data will be protected by us in the EEA. This can be done in a number of ways, for instance:

  • the recipient of the data might be a signatory to PIMCO Group binding corporate rules;
  • the country that we send the data to might be approved by the European Commission or a relevant data protection authority;
  • the recipient might have signed up to a contract based on “model contractual clauses” approved by the European Commission, obliging them to protect your personal data; or
  • where the recipient is located in the US, it might be a certified member of the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme.

In other circumstances the law may permit us to otherwise transfer your personal data outside the EEA. In all cases, however, we will ensure that any transfer of your personal data is compliant with data protection law.

You can obtain more details of the protection given to your personal data when it is transferred outside the EEA (including a copy of the standard data protection clauses which we have entered into with recipients of your personal data or binding corporate rules) by contacting us in accordance with the “Contact us” section below.

How long we keep your personal data

How long we hold your personal data for will vary. The retention period will be determined by various criteria including:

  • our internal policies that dictate the period for which we hold personal data; and
  • legal obligations – laws or regulation may set a minimum period for which we have to store your personal data.

Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you. These rights include:

  • the right to obtain information regarding the processing of your personal data and access to the personal data which we hold about you;
  • the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal data at any time. Please note, however, that we may still be entitled to process your personal data if we have another legitimate reason (other than consent) for doing so;
  • in some circumstances, the right to receive some personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or request that we transmit those data to a third party where this is technically feasible. Please note that this right only applies to personal data which you have provided to us;
  • the right to request that we rectify your personal data if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
  • the right to request that we erase your personal data in certain circumstances. Please note that there may be circumstances where you ask us to erase your personal data but we are legally entitled to retain it;
  • the right to request that we restrict our processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. Please note that there may be circumstances where you ask us to restrict our processing of your personal data but we are legally entitled to refuse that request;
  • the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we process your personal data pursuant to our legitimate business interests. Please note that there may be circumstances where you object to our processing of your personal data but we are legally entitled to refuse that request;
  • the right to object to any automated decision making (including profiling) which we conduct based on your personal data, which significantly affects you. Please note that there may be circumstances where you object to us conducting automated decision making but we are legally entitled to refuse that request;
  • the right to object to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes; and
  • the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection regulator (details of which are provided below) if you think that any of your rights have been infringed by us.

You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the details set out in the “Contacting us” section below.

You can find out more information about your rights by contacting the following:

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

Contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or personal data we hold about you:

Write to us at our address:

  • for PDG at PIMCO Europe GmbH, Seidlstr. 24, D-80335, Munich; or
  • for PEL at PIMCO Europe Ltd, 11 Baker Street W1U 3AH, London, attn. Legal and Compliance.

or contact us by email at: emea_privacy@pimco.com or alternatively by completing the ‘contact us’ form on our website.

PDG has appointed a Data Protection Officer who, for queries relating to PDG, can be contacted using the ‘contact us’ details above. Please mark your enquiry ‘for the attention of the Data Protection Officer’.

Allianz Privacy Standard

The PIMCO Group entities are all members of the Allianz Group and the PIMCO Group entities set out in this document have signed up to comply with the Allianz Privacy Standard. The Allianz Privacy Standard provides information on the rules governing the international transfer of personal data between PIMCO Group companies (as well as other Allianz Group companies) operating in the European Economic Area (EEA) and PIMCO Group companies (as well as other Allianz Group companies) outside that area. This Alliance Privacy Standard also describes the rights of data subjects in respect of such transfers, what to do if data subjects want to exercise their rights or complain about such transfers, and how data subjects can contact PIMCO.

Group entities signed up to the Allianz Privacy Standard

Allianz Privacy Standard