GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE FOR SERVICES OFFERED BY SPA
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This page was last updated on 13th July 2023.
These General Terms and Conditions of Use (hereinafter referred to as "GTCU") are intended to govern (i) the use of the website published by the German Association SMART PAYMENT ASSOCIATION e.V. (hereinafter referred to as "SPA") and available notably at the following URL address https://www.smartpaymentassociation.com (hereinafter referred to as the "Website"), including (ii) all content, all services and all functionalities available on the Website (hereinafter referred to collectively as "Services”). By accessing and/or using the Website and the Services, you expressly and fully accept these GTCU as well as all other legal documents pertaining to the use of the Website and the Services such as, for example, the Privacy Policy. You are hereby informed that SPA, publisher of the Website, reserves the right to modify both the GTCU and the legal documents at any time. Therefore, you acknowledge and agree that by using or simply accessing the Website and the Services after the last-modified date, you will be deemed to have accepted the GTCU and the legal documents as modified.
1. PRESENTATION OF THE WEBSITE AND THE SERVICES
The Website aims to provide general information regarding SPA’s activity and actuality. In its capacity of informational Website, there are no financial operations occurring on it.
SPA’s mission is to addresses the challenges of the evolving payment ecosystem, offering leadership and expert guidance to help its members and their customers realize the opportunities of smart, secure and personalized payment systems and services both now and for the future.
As a consequence, the Website and the Services are offered, to individuals as well as public bodies and private companies. The individuals representing public bodies or private companies hereby state that they are duly authorized for the purpose hereof by the latter.
2. REGISTRATION AND ACCESS
To be able to access the Website and use most of the Services, you don’t need to register and create an account.
However, SPA offers you the possibility to receive a newsletter regarding SPA’s news. If need be, you shall first register and create an account on the Website and accept the present Terms and Conditions of Use.
Once your registration is completed, you will regularly receive news that you may unsubscribe at any time by following the instructions indicated at the bottom of each newsletter.
3. HOSTING
The website is hosted by:
SCALEWAY S.A.S, BP 438, F-75366 Paris Cedex 08
A French société par actions simplifiée with a share capital of €214,410.50
Paris Trade and Companies Register number: B 433 115 904
4. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The Website and the Services are the exclusive property of SPA.
SPA holds all intellectual property rights relating to all content accessible on and/or from the Website, in particular all texts, images, sounds, data, photos, videos, logos, trademarks, names, tabs, functionalities and all other hardware or software, which are protected by any rights held by SPA or its third-party partners (hereinafter referred to as "Website Components").
In general terms, SPA grants you a free, personal, non-exclusive and non-transferable right to access and to use the Website and the Services, subject to your acceptance and respect of the GTCU. All other rights are expressly excluded without our prior written consent. Any partial or complete reproduction, especially for advertising or commercial purposes, as well as any adaptation, modification, use, transfer, copying, redistribution and/or exploitation, on any medium and by any means, of any or all Website Components, is strictly forbidden, unless expressly authorized by SPA in a prior written agreement.
Furthermore, you are not authorized to change, improve, edit, translate, decompile, disassemble or create one or several derivative work(s) from the Services Components (in whole or in part), unless this option has been expressly granted to you by SPA or by the owners of the Website Component(s) under the terms and conditions of a specific agreement. Any unauthorized use of the Website or of one of its Components shall be subject to legal action aimed at protecting the rights of SPA.
Finally, all comments, suggestions and, more generally, all contributions (hereinafter referred to as "Contributions") made by you while using the remain your property. However, subject to legal provisions in force, you hereby grant worldwide and exclusive permission to SPA to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, transfer, and exploit the Contributions on any known and hitherto unknown medium, without restriction and on a free basis, for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights protecting these Contributions, if applicable.
5. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS USER
SPA offers you to comment the contents published on the Website via social networks; and/or directly on the Website (discussion areas, forums,...).
In this respect, we remind you that all illegal words and content are strictly prohibited on the Website, in particular words and content that are racist, revisionist, pedophilic in nature or inciting sexual tourism, homophobic, or inciting hatred; insulting, degrading, libelous, slanderous, disrespectful; of a pornographic nature; of political, religious or ideological propaganda; those promoting a commercial activity or intended to generate income or benefits from their distribution; those that violate copyright laws or incite the infringement of intellectual property rights; those that violate the secrecy of correspondence or infringe rights, reputation and third-party’s private life; those that are off-topic regarding the subject of the sections in which they are published; and, more generally, all content contrary to accepted standards of behavior, that are likely to hurt the feelings of others, to reflect or incite an improper use of the Internet and of information and communication technologies.
Moreover, regarding the seriousness of the information provided on the Website, we remind you that the information given to SPA shall be accurate.
Any message or content that violates these provisions will be deleted without warning, explanation or formal notice by SPA directly, if possible, or will be brought to the attention of the managing social media platform with the intention of having it removed, and any warning or exclusion measure may be taken to this effect.
Furthermore, you agree to be solely responsible for their content and legality, and hereby release SPA of any liability for damages that third parties may claim in this respect.
In addition, as a user of the Website and the Services, you may report any content you may consider illegal as defined above, notify them directly to SPA by using the form accessible by clicking on the link "Contact us".
6. WARRANTIES AND LIABILITY LIMITATIONS
You hereby declare that you possess the skills, hardware and software required to use the Internet, that you are aware of and understand the features of the Internet and of its use, in particular the limitations associated with technical performance, response times and risks related to security of communications. Therefore, SPA does not guarantee that the Website and the Services will be free from anomalies, errors or bugs, or that they will function without failure or interruption. In this respect, SPA reserves the right to freely determine any period of unavailability of the Website and the Services or of any of their sections, for technical reasons, to improve their content or optimize their use.
SPA shall not be held liable for any direct or indirect damage of any kind resulting from the use of the Website and its Services, in particular from the limitations associated with technical performance, response times and risks related to security of communications, as well as fraudulent third-party intrusions.
Generally, SPA cannot be held liable for any prejudice or damage of any kind resulting from your use of the Website and/or its Services. Finally, SPA may not be held liable for any connection costs and, more generally, for any communication costs resulting from your access to and use of the Website and the Services.
7. PERSONAL DATA
Any personal data that might be gathered or processed by SPA while accessing the Website and/or using the Services is governed by the Privacy Policy.
8. CREATION OF LINKS
SPA can authorize on the Website the creation of hypertext links directing to its content, provided that:
- this does not involve the use of techniques allowing the nesting of the Website pages within the pages of another site (iframe, meta refresh, etc.), but opens the site in its own window where the URL is displayed;
- the link is transcribed in text form using an explicit formulation whose words and expressions strictly match the targeted content and comply with its nature and form;
- this leads directly to the Web page hosting the targeted content or, in the absence thereof, to the Website home page or, more generally, its Services.
The links thus created must be used for personal, community or non-commercial purposes only. Any use for commercial or advertising purposes is prohibited, as is any creation of links originating from websites that contain any information that is illegal, pornographic, abusive, propagandistic or polemical in nature, or is more generally likely to offend others or is otherwise contrary to accepted standards of behavior.
9. WEBSITE AND SERVICES AVAILABILITY
In principle, the Website and the Services are available around the clock, seven (7) days a week, subject to scheduled or unscheduled interruptions necessary for their maintenance, or cases of unforeseen circumstances (force majeure). Being de facto subject to a best effort obligation, SPA shall not be held liable for any damage, of any kind, incurred as a result of any unavailability of the Website and/or the Services.
10. PROOF, STORAGE and ARCHIVING
The computerized records stored in our systems, in accordance with the latest security procedures and the state of the art, will be considered as proof of communications by e-mail, mailings of registration forms, comment postings, etc. The archiving of registration forms is carried out on a medium that is capable of ensuring the reliability and durability required by current legal provisions. It is specifically agreed that in the event of a discrepancy between our computerized records and the paper or electronic documents you may have, our computerized records shall prevail.
11. UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES (CASES OF FORCE MAJEURE)
SPA commits itself, in view of current technical tools, to maintain the Website and its Services in the best possible conditions. However, SPA shall not be held liable in the event of any interruptions of the Website and the Services as a result of unforeseen circumstances caused by a third-party, by the user or by the latter’s own clients, or those resulting from hazards related to technology.
Although the following list is not exhaustive, the parties hereby conventionally agree that result either from unforeseen circumstances, or from a fortuitous event or from a third-party action, damage originating from or caused by: natural disasters, fires, floods, lightning, electrical surges, strikes, power outages, telecommunication network failures, computer failures, civil or foreign wars, riots or popular uprisings, national security threats, regulatory restrictions related to the supply of telecommunication services, connection and/or connectivity failures caused by public and private operators that SPA depends upon.
These unforeseen circumstances suspend the obligations of SPA mentioned in these GTCU for their entire duration.
12. CHANGES
SPA reserves the right to change the Website and the Services at any time, in response to technical innovations, as well as the GTCU. Changes to the GTCU will come into effect as soon as they are posted online. By continuing to access the Website and to use the Services, you will be deemed to have accepted these changes. You are therefore invited to consult the latest version of the GTCU.
13. MISCELLANEOUS
The present GTCU, as well as all legal documents governing the Services (Privacy Policy), are governed by, interpreted and applied in accordance with Federal Republic of Germany law, German being the language of interpretation in the event of a disagreement over the meaning of a word or provision of the GTCU and of all legal documents governing the Services.
Should one of the provisions of the present GTCU be found null and void, or inapplicable, it shall be deemed unwritten. This shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions or clauses, which shall maintain their full force and scope.
SPA shall decide upon all cases of use that are not covered by the GTCU, and its decisions shall not be subject to any form of appeal. Any litigation or dispute resulting from the use of the Services shall be subject to an attempt at amicable settlement.
In the absence of an agreement, the litigation shall be brought, except in the event of contrary public order provisions, in the Federal Republic of Germany courts governing the SPA headquarters, that will decide in accordance with the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Any technical issues or questions? Do not hesitate to contact the SPA team at
