Privacy policy

1. Who we are

SmartSarmaya is an independent educational research site covering the Pakistan Stock Exchange, operated from Pakistan. This policy covers the website at smartsarmaya.com and its subdomains. You can reach us at info@smartsarmaya.com.

2. What we do not collect

• No accounts. There is no sign up, no login and no password, so there is no user profile to store, breach or sell. The newsletter is the one place an email address is stored, it is optional, and it gives you nothing to log in to; see section 3.
• No stored portfolios. When you enter symbols, quantities and buy prices into the portfolio audit tool, that information is held in memory only for as long as it takes to produce your report. It is not written to our database, not attached to an identity, and not reused for any other purpose. Close the tab and it is gone.
• No financial account details. We never ask for your CDC account number, broker credentials, bank details, CNIC or NTN, and you should never send them to us.
• No payment data. The site is free, so there is no checkout and no card processing.

3. What is collected

• Server logs and IP address. Like any website, our hosting records each request with an IP address, timestamp, the page or API route requested, browser user agent and referring page. We use this to keep the site running, to debug errors, and to apply rate limits so that one visitor or bot cannot exhaust the free AI quota that funds the tools for everyone else. These logs are retained for a short operational period and are not used to build a profile of you.
• Analytics events. Google Analytics records which pages are viewed, roughly where in the world the visit came from, the device and browser type, and how visitors move between pages. We look at this in aggregate to decide what to build next.
• Advertising signals. Google AdSense collects the information it needs to serve and measure ads. See section 5.
• Your email address, if you subscribe. The newsletter signup stores the address you type, the page you signed up from and the time you did it. The page and time are the record that you asked for the emails. We use the address for nothing but sending the newsletter: it is never sold, shared or passed to an advertiser. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can also write to us to be removed. When you unsubscribe we keep the address on a suppression record rather than deleting it, so that a later send cannot accidentally email you again; say so in your message if you would rather it were erased outright.
• Anything you email us. If you write to us, we keep that message and your email address for as long as needed to deal with it.

4. Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand traffic. It sets cookies in your browser and sends usage data to Google. We do not send Google Analytics any portfolio content, any stock symbols you looked up privately in the audit tool, or anything that identifies you personally. You can block it with a browser extension such as the Google Analytics opt out add on, or with any standard content blocker, and the site will still work.

5. Google AdSense, cookies and personalised advertising

SmartSarmaya is free because it carries advertising served by Google AdSense. This is the only thing paying for the hosting, the database and the domain.

• Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings at adssettings.google.com. Turning personalisation off does not remove ads, it only makes them less targeted.
• You can opt out of third party vendor cookies more broadly through aboutads.info/choices, and you can block or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time.
• Where required, Google presents a consent notice to visitors in regions such as the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom before setting non essential cookies.

We do not receive your identity from Google. We see aggregate earnings and performance reports only.

6. Third parties who process data

Running the site means some data passes through infrastructure we do not own. These are all of them.

When you run a portfolio audit or a stock analysis, the text of that request is sent to the AI provider so it can generate the answer. It is not sent with your name or any identifier from us, because we do not have one. Each provider handles that request under its own privacy terms, so if the composition of your portfolio is sensitive to you, consider using the tool with a subset of your holdings.

7. We do not sell your data

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information, and we do not share it with data brokers, brokerages, listed companies or fund managers. There is no mailing list to be added to. We would disclose information only where a valid legal order under Pakistani law required it, or where it was strictly necessary to investigate abuse of the service.

8. Children

SmartSarmaya is intended for adults who are able to open a brokerage account, and it is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information by email, write to us and we will delete it.

9. International transfers

The site is operated for a Pakistani audience, but the providers listed above run servers outside Pakistan, including in the United States and Europe. Using the site means your request data is processed in those countries, where data protection law may differ from Pakistani law. We limit what is sent by keeping the site free of accounts in the first place.

10. Your choices

• Block or delete cookies in your browser at any time.
• Turn off personalised ads at Google Ads Settings.
• Use a content blocker to stop analytics and ad scripts loading.
• Simply do not enter holdings you are uncomfortable sending to an AI provider. Every other part of the site works without them.
• Ask us to delete any email correspondence we hold from you by writing to info@smartsarmaya.com.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change how data is handled, this page is updated and the date at the top changes with it. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the revised policy.

12. Contact

Questions about privacy go to info@smartsarmaya.com. You may also want the terms of service or the about page, which explains where the market data comes from.