Terms & Conditions consent log

Introduction

In accordance with the April 2021 ruling from the Federal Court of Justice of Germany, whenever Solaris makes a change to a mandatory customer agreement document (e.g., the Terms and Conditions), Solaris must collect customers' express consent to the new document.

When this occurs, Solaris will provide you with information about the update. You must then prompt your customers in your solution to consent to the new Terms and Conditions (or any other such contract that they signed with Solaris) and record their consent using the terms and conditions consent log API. The same endpoints can be used for both persons and businesses.

How Solaris communicates changes to the T&Cs

When Solaris wishes to change the T&Cs, Solaris' Legal department will reach out to you via email with the following information:

• A link to the new T&Cs document,
• The document ID of the new T&Cs for use in the API (see below for IDs you can use for testing),
• The deadline for customers to agree to the new T&Cs,
• The date when the new T&Cs come into effect,
• Information on which T&Cs have been updated (which product), and
• Clear guidelines on the consequences to the customer for rejecting the new T&Cs (e.g., account termination) and what actions you must take in this case.

Solaris will update the permalinks for each updated document at midnight on the date when Solaris' Legal department communicates the changes. Therefore, all customers onboarding on the day the T&C updates are communicated will automatically accept the new T&Cs.

What types of documents and changes are involved?

You must always go through the T&C consent log process when the change in T&Cs relates to material changes. This includes:

• Changes that concern the parties' main contractual obligations,
• Documents that the customer must accept during onboarding (e.g., the General Terms and Conditions, all Special Conditions related to your solution, the List of Prices and Services), and
• Changes to fees.

You do not have to use the T&C consent log for non-material changes. This includes:

• Cases where T&C changes relate to changes in the law or court decisions or authorities' guidelines,
• Informational documents that do not require explicit consent, such as the Customer Information on Data Processing, the Depositor Information Sheet, and the Automatic Exchange of Church Taxes Information,
• Changes that do not concern the parties' main contractual obligations, and
• Redactional changes.

Solaris will specify whether changes are material or non-material in the legal email around upcoming changes. You do not have to specify this when communicating the changes to your customers.

How long do the customers have to accept the T&C changes?

Each customer has two months after the rollout of T&C changes to accept them.

What if the customer rejects the new T&Cs?

See the acceptance/rejection paths section for detailed information on how to handle each possible action by your customers.

What about customers without any active accounts?

If a customer does not have an active account with Solaris, then this person is no longer considered a customer and therefore the T&C consent log does not apply to them. If they re-open an account with Solaris, then they will have to accept the updated T&Cs during onboarding.

What about customers who missed a prior T&C update?

Customers must only acknowledge the latest T&C update published by Solaris, as this will include all previous updates.

General flow

1. Solaris updates a customer agreement (e.g., the T&Cs) and communicates these changes to partners as described above.
2. You must send the PDF of all updated documents to your customers via email.

3. Your solution must display the new T&Cs to their customers when they log in and prompt them with the option to:

   • review the T&Cs (i.e., read the text and then leave the T&Cs window without taking a decision),
   • accept the T&Cs, or
   • reject the T&Cs.

4. When the customer accepts or rejects the T&Cs, then your solution must record this instance and then send it to Solaris using the POST Create terms and conditions event method.

   • Note: You must call this endpoint for each document that the customer is agreeing to.

5. Solaris will store this consent in its systems. You can retrieve records of who signed the new document by calling the GET List all terms and conditions events method.

   • You can filter the results of this method by user (filter[signed_by]) or specific document (filter[document_id]). See the API documentation link above for more information.

You do not have to display T&C updates that were accepted/rejected in your solution.

How to communicate T&C updates to your customers

When Solaris publishes an update to the terms and conditions, you must send the combined PDF of all updated documents to your customers via email.

Your solution must present this update to the customer at the time they log in to the app or web browser. Your solution must indicate that action is required on their part and must prevent them from continuing past this point until they accept, reject, or skip the T&C update (which should only be possible until the deadline).

On this screen, you must provide the permalinks to each updated T&Cs document and a link to the aggregated markup version (which Solaris will provide). The permalinks to the documents will never change. You must also use the text provided by Solaris in the initial legal communication. Minor variations (e.g., using "du" instead of "Sie") are allowed, but any substantive changes to the text must be approved by Solaris.

If the customer has not accepted or rejected the T&Cs by the deadline, then your solution must prevent them from proceeding until they do.

Acceptance/rejection paths

Customer accepts new T&Cs

If the customer accepts the new T&Cs:

• You must record the date/time of consent, the product_name of the relevant product, and the UID of the document, and send this information to Solaris using the POST Create terms and conditions event endpoint.
• Solaris treats this as a confirmation that the customer agrees with the new T&Cs. This approval cannot be revoked.

Customer rejects new T&Cs

The consequences of rejecting the new T&Cs depend on the document the customer rejects and the specific changes involved in the update. In many cases, this may be an ordinary account termination (with two months' notice). Solaris will trigger the account closure process manually in these cases.

If the customer rejects the new T&Cs:

• In your frontend, you must inform the customer about the consequences of rejecting the new T&Cs and offer them another chance to accept.
• If the customer still rejects the T&Cs, then record the date/time of rejection, the product_name of the relevant product, and the UID of the document, and send this information to Solaris using the POST Create terms and conditions event endpoint.
• Solaris will automatically initiate the ordinary account closure process.

During the two-month notice period, provide your customers with the option period to change their mind and accept the new T&Cs anyway. If they do so, then please complete the following actions:

1. Call the POST Create terms and conditions event endpoint to record their consent on Solaris' backend.
2. Contact Solaris Customer Support to stop the account closure process.

Customer neither accepts nor rejects new T&Cs

If the customer defers a decision on the new T&Cs:

• Your solution must constantly remind the customer in the form of a pop-up screen that they must take action on the T&Cs.
• If one month has passed since the initial email and in-app notification, then you must prevent the user from using your app/web interface until they either accept or reject the T&Cs.
• If the customer reaches out to your customer service team to unblock the frontend, inform them that they must accept or reject the new T&Cs.
• Note that the underlying product (e.g., account, card, loan) will not be blocked.

If the customer neither accepts nor rejects and the deadline lapses:

• You must prevent the customer from using your app/web interface until they either accept or reject the T&Cs.
• Submit the information about the customer's acceptance/rejection to Solaris using the API as described above.
• Note that the underlying product (e.g., account, card, loan) will not be blocked.

Example document IDs for testing

You can use the following document IDs to test this API on Sandbox: