Cookie Policy

Clear, transparent details about how we use cookies and local storage to provide a seamless browsing experience.

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Effective Date: June 20, 2026

This Cookie Policy explains how Lloyds Independent Financial Services uses cookies and similar tracking technologies when you browse our website. It is designed to ensure transparency, compliance with the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), and respect for your online privacy choices.

2. What is Local Storage?

In addition to cookies, we use a technology called Local Storage.

Unlike standard cookies, which have predefined expiration dates, Local Storage resides directly on your web browser and does not automatically expire. The data remains saved on your device until you manually clear your browser cache.

We use Local Storage specifically to power our **MIA chatbot** (to save your chat transcript history across page clicks so you don't lose your conversation) and to securely remember whether you have already dismissed our **Cookie Consent Banner** so it doesn't interrupt your browsing on every single visit.

3. How do we use cookies?

We utilize both first-party and third-party cookies on our website:

  • First-Party Cookies: Generated directly by LloydsIFS to keep our core website functioning, protect security, and remember calculator progress.
  • Third-Party Cookies: Set by reputable external organizations whose tools we integrate. For example, we use services like Google Analytics to evaluate traffic, and Microsoft Graph to sync live calendar availability for consultation bookings.

These cookies are categorized strictly by their function on our platform. Below is a complete, detailed audit of every cookie used.

4. Essential cookies

These cookies and Local Storage scripts are absolutely necessary for our website to operate securely and correctly. Without these, our core customer features (such as MIA, the calendar scheduler, and user authentication) will not function.

Cookie/Key Name Duration Purpose & Description
cookie_consent Indefinite (Local Storage) Records your choices on our Cookie Consent Banner so we don't ask you for permission on every single visit.
__cf_bm 1 hour Set by Cloudflare to support bot management and defend against automated spam or cyber attacks.
_cfuvid Session Set by Cloudflare to optimize page loading speeds and maintain connection stability.
supabase.auth.token Indefinite (Local Storage) Maintains secure authorization states for broker and client logins within our secure portal database.
mia_messages Session (Local Storage) Temporarily saves the chat history with MIA so the conversation persists if you navigate to other pages during your session.

5. Functional cookies

These elements allow our website to remember choices or calculations you have run (such as budget metrics on our calculators), giving you a faster, customized experience. They do not track your behavior on external sites.

Cookie/Key Name Duration Purpose & Description
lloyds_calc_state Indefinite (Local Storage) Remembers the purchase figures you entered on our mortgage calculators, preventing you from having to type them in again if you refresh the page.
is_mia_muted Indefinite (Local Storage) Remembers whether you chose to mute MIA's audio/text-to-speech features.

6. Analytics cookies

These cookies allow us to record anonymous visitor metrics—such as which pages are read the most, how long people stay, and how visitors navigate the layout. This enables us to continually optimize our page structures and keep our resources accurate.

Cookie/Key Name Duration Purpose & Description
_ga 1 year, 1 month Set by Google Analytics. Generates anonymous statistics regarding unique web page visitors and helps monitor traffic volume.
_ga_* 1 year, 1 month Set by Google Analytics to store and count overall page views.
_gid 24 hours Set by Google Analytics to track user navigation paths across our subpages during a single active day.

7. Advertising cookies

We do not currently serve third-party commercial advertisements on our website. However, if we run localized search campaign tracking (such as Google Ads) to help Farnham or Surrey clients locate our services, standard campaign conversion cookies (like `_gcl_au`) may be set to evaluate if our search listings are functioning effectively.

8. How do I change my cookie settings?

When you first visit our website, you are presented with our cookie consent banner. You can choose to accept all cookies, or decline optional analytical and campaign tracking.

If you ever wish to clear cookies or manually manage how your browser handles them, you can easily do so in your browser settings. Below are instruction links for the most popular web browsers:

Google Chrome Microsoft Edge Mozilla Firefox Apple Safari Opera Browser

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, you can install Google's official browser opt-out extension at: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.