Privacy Policy

Your Privacy Matters

At Centsi, we take your privacy seriously. This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you use our financial management service.

Information We Collect

• Account information (email, name) when you sign up
• Phone number (optional, only if you enable SMS alerts)
• Financial data from linked bank accounts through our secure Plaid integration
• Usage data to improve our service and provide personalized insights

How We Use Your Information

• To provide personalized financial insights and recommendations
• To send you alerts and notifications about your spending
• To improve and optimize our service
• To communicate important updates about your account

We Do Not Sell Your Data

Your financial data is yours. We do not sell or rent your personal or financial information, and we do not share it with third parties for marketing purposes. We only share data with service providers when needed to provide Centsi features you choose to use, such as bank linking, SMS alerts, and the optional Centsi AI Advisor described below.

Plaid Integration & Data Collection

Centsi uses Plaid Inc. to securely connect to your financial institutions. When you connect a bank account, Plaid accesses the following information on our behalf:

• Account information: Account name, type (checking, savings, credit card, etc.), and masked account numbers
• Balance information: Current and available balances for each connected account
• Transaction history: Transaction descriptions, amounts, dates, categories, and merchant names from your accounts
• Liabilities: Credit card balances, credit limits, interest rates, minimum payments, and due dates
• Recurring transactions: Detected subscriptions and recurring bills

We do NOT access: Your bank login credentials, Social Security number, or the ability to move money from your accounts. Plaid handles authentication directly with your bank—we never see your password.

By using Centsi, you also agree to Plaid's End User Privacy Policy.

Bank-Level Security

We use Plaid, a trusted financial technology provider used by thousands of apps including Venmo and Robinhood, to securely connect to your bank accounts. Plaid uses bank-level encryption and never stores your bank login credentials on our servers. Your connection is protected by 256-bit encryption. All sensitive data, including access tokens, is encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM encryption.

Data Protection

• All data is encrypted in transit and at rest
• We use secure, industry-standard infrastructure
• Regular security audits and monitoring
• Strict access controls for our team

SMS Alerts & Text Messages

Centsi offers optional SMS text message alerts to help you stay on top of your finances. Here's what you need to know:

• Opt-in required: You must voluntarily provide your phone number and enable SMS alerts in your account Settings to receive text messages. SMS alerts are never enabled by default.
• Message frequency: You may receive up to 20 text messages per month, depending on your alert preferences (budget alerts, bill reminders, spending updates, weekly summaries).
• Message and data rates may apply: Standard carrier message and data rates may apply to messages you receive from Centsi.
• Your phone number is private: We will never sell, share, or rent your phone number to third parties for marketing or any other purpose.
• How to opt out: Reply STOP to any message to unsubscribe from SMS alerts immediately. You can also disable SMS alerts anytime in your account Settings.
• Need help? Reply HELP to any message for assistance, or contact us at info@mycentsi.com.

We use Twilio to send SMS messages. Messages are sent from our dedicated phone number and contain alerts about your budget, upcoming bills, and spending activity based on the preferences you select.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access your personal data
• Request deletion of your data
• Disconnect your bank accounts at any time
• Export your data
• Opt out of non-essential communications

Delete your account in-app: Go to Settings → Delete account to permanently erase your profile, transactions, budgets, goals, and AI history. Connected bank accounts are unlinked and revoked at Plaid, and any active subscription is automatically cancelled. This action is immediate and cannot be undone.

Centsi AI Advisor & Third-Party AI Services

Centsi includes an optional AI feature called the Centsi AI Advisor that answers questions about your money in plain English. To generate these answers, we send a limited subset of your financial data to a third-party AI service.

What data is sent:

• Your question or message to the AI Advisor
• Your account names, account types, and current balances
• Recent transactions (merchant name, amount, date, category, optional notes)
• Your monthly budgets and category spending totals
• Your upcoming bills and savings goals

What is never sent:

• Your name, email address, or phone number
• Your bank login credentials or passwords
• Full bank account numbers or routing numbers
• Your Plaid access tokens or any payment information

Who the data is sent to: Requests are sent to Google (Gemini models) and/or OpenAI (GPT models) through the Lovable AI Gateway, which acts as our data processor. These providers process the data only to generate your answer and do not use it to train their models.

Your permission is required: The first time you open the Centsi AI Advisor, you will be shown a clear disclosure and must explicitly agree before any financial data is sent to the AI service. If you do not agree, no data is sent and the rest of Centsi continues to work normally. You can revoke consent at any time in Settings → AI data sharing or by contacting us.

No AI use elsewhere: Outside of the Centsi AI Advisor, no other part of the Centsi app sends your personal or financial data to a third-party AI service.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at privacy@mycentsi.com