Privacy policy

Effective 10 November 2026

Settlo records shared expenses and loans between people who know each other. This page says what the app stores, where it is kept, who else receives it, and what you can ask us to do with it.

In short

You sign in with your phone number. It is sent to our SMS provider, MSG91, to deliver the sign-in code.
What you record (spaces, expenses, loans, repayments) is stored on our servers in Mumbai, India, and shown to the other people in that space or loan.
A copy is kept on your phone so the app works offline.
There are no ads, no analytics, no crash reporting and no tracking. We do not sell or rent personal data.
Settlo never moves money and never sees your bank account, card or UPI PIN.
Contact for privacy, deletion and grievances: settlo@hellojosh.studio.

Who is responsible

Settlo is operated by JOSH Studio, which decides how the data described here is used and is the data fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (the DPDP Act). Reach us at settlo@hellojosh.studio.

What we store

Your account: Your phone number, the name you choose to show, and your UPI ID if you add one. Our sign-in system also keeps when your number was verified, when you last signed in, and the session tokens that keep you signed in. Each account has an internal ID.
Spaces and their members: The name and type of each space (flat, trip, friend or other), and for each member: their phone number, the name they were added under, their role, and when they were added, accepted, declined or left.
Expenses: Description, category, amount, date, who paid and how it is split, who created it, and when. Settle-up payments are stored the same way, with who confirmed or disputed them and when. Disputing a settle-up needs a reason, which you type in your own words (up to 500 characters); it is stored with the settle-up and visible to the members of that space. Repeating expenses, where set up, are stored with their schedule.
Loans and repayments: The phone numbers of the lender and the borrower, the amount, interest type, schedule, instalment and due day; and for each repayment the amount, date, method (UPI, cash, bank or other), any reference you type, who recorded it, who confirmed or disputed it and when, and the reason typed for a dispute, in free text, which the other person in the loan can see.
Activity history: A log of changes in each space and loan: who created, edited, deleted, restored, recorded, confirmed, disputed or declined something, when, and a copy of the entry before and after the change. Members of the space or loan can see it.
Friends list: Our server can hold a list of phone numbers you save as friends, each linked to that person’s account if they have one. The current app does not save anything to it. It is visible only to you.
Invite links: When you send an invite, we store a one-way hash of the link (not the link itself), what it invites to, the phone number it is for, who issued it, and when it was created, used, declined or revoked.
Abuse limits and duplicate protection: Counters of how many invites and lookups an account has made recently, and the request keys the app uses so that a write sent twice is applied once.

Other people’s numbers

To add someone to a space or a loan you type their phone number and a name for them. Only add people who expect it. Settlo does not read your address book, and it does not ask for access to your contacts, location, camera, photos or microphone.

If someone has added your number, nothing recorded against it is shown to anyone signing in until that number is verified by SMS. You then review each space or loan and accept it, or choose “This isn’t me”, which unlinks your number from it.

What we do not collect

No advertising identifiers, no device identifiers, no location, no analytics or usage tracking, no crash reports, and no bank, card or UPI PIN details. The app contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting software.

Why we use it

We use this data only to run the app for you and the people you share with: to sign you in, to show each member the same expenses, balances, loans and history, to link what was recorded against your number to you once you verify it, and to prevent abuse. We rely on your consent, given when you sign up and when you choose to enter information. We do not use the data for advertising or profiling.

What stays on your phone

Offline copy. The app keeps a copy of the spaces, expenses, loans and activity you are allowed to see, and a queue of anything you added while offline, in a database file in the app’s private storage. It is protected by your phone’s own app isolation and screen lock; the app does not add a separate layer of encryption. Signing out removes this copy and the queue from the phone, including anything in the queue that had not yet been sent.
Sign-in session and theme. Your session token and your light or dark theme choice are kept in the app’s storage.
Exports. When you export a space (a CSV file and a summary PDF) or download a loan statement, the files are made on your phone and handed to the system share sheet. They list people by name, with amounts and dates; phone numbers are left out. We do not receive the files. Where they go next is your choice, and the app deletes its temporary copy afterwards and again the next time it starts.
Lock screen and notifications. While a settle-up is waiting for your confirmation, the iPhone Live Activity and Dynamic Island, or the Android notification, show the space name, the payer’s name (or “A flatmate” if no name is known; never their phone number), and the amount. These are created on your phone and can be seen on your lock screen. Settlo does not send push notifications and does not hold a push token for your device.

Who receives your data

People you share with: Members of a space see its members (names and phone numbers), expenses and history. The two people in a loan see the loan and its repayments. Your profile name and UPI ID are visible only to people who share a space or loan with you, and only once you have accepted it.
Anyone holding an invite link: Before signing in, a person who opens a valid invite link sees the name of the person who invited them, the name of the space, and a masked version of the invited number. The link works only for the number it was made for and expires after 14 days.
MSG91 (SMS delivery): When you ask for a sign-in code, your phone number and the code are sent to MSG91, our SMS provider in India, which passes the message to your mobile operator. MSG91 handles them under its own terms. Our own logs for this step record only the last four digits of the number.
Supabase (hosting): Our database, sign-in system and server code run on Supabase, on Amazon Web Services in Mumbai (ap-south-1). Supabase processes the data on our behalf. Like any server, it logs technical details of requests, such as IP address and time.
Apps you choose to open: When you tap to pay, Settlo opens your UPI app with the payee’s UPI ID and name, the amount and a note. When you tap to invite or remind someone, it opens WhatsApp with their number and a message for you to send. What you do in those apps is governed by their policies. Settlo cannot see whether a payment was made.
When the law requires: We may disclose data if required to by a court or a lawful order of an authority in India.

We do not share personal data with advertisers, data brokers or anyone else.

Where it is stored

Account and shared data is stored in India, in Supabase’s Mumbai region (AWS ap-south-1). Data travels between the app and the server over encrypted connections, and access on the server is restricted so that each account can read only the spaces and loans it belongs to.

How long we keep it

Your account and what you have recorded are kept for as long as you have an account. We do not currently delete accounts for inactivity.
Deleting an expense or a space in the app hides it and records the deletion in the activity history; it is not erased from the server, and an expense can be restored.
Sign-in codes expire after 10 minutes.
Invite links stop working after 14 days; their record (the hash, the invited number and the outcome) is kept.
Duplicate-protection keys are deleted after 30 days.
Our hosting plan does not include automatic database backups or point-in-time recovery. Server logs, and any backups the provider keeps, may hold data for a further period until they expire on the provider’s schedule.

Deleting your account

In the app, open Profile and choose Delete account. The account is deleted at once and this cannot be undone. If your version of the app does not show Delete account yet, update the app.

If you cannot sign in, email settlo@hellojosh.studio with the phone number you sign in with. We will confirm the number is yours and complete the deletion within 30 days.

When an account is deleted:

The name on your profile becomes “Deleted user”, and your phone number and UPI ID are removed from it.
Your sign-in is deleted, with its sessions, duplicate-protection keys and abuse-limit counters. Your number is free at once; signing up with it again makes a new account.
Your friends list is deleted. If someone else saved your number as a friend, their entry keeps the number they typed and is no longer linked to you.
Invite links you issued that had not been used are revoked.
Spaces and loans you had not yet accepted are unlinked from you.
The copy on your phone is removed, including anything you added offline that had not yet been sent.

Deleting your account does not remove the expenses, loans, repayments and settle-ups you share with other people, the reasons typed for disputes, or the activity history. Those stay in the other people’s records, including the name and phone number they entered for you, because they are part of those people’s own financial history. Your profile, now named “Deleted user”, stays attached to them so the totals still add up. The person who created an expense, or an owner of the space, can still edit or delete it.

Signing out, or uninstalling the app, removes the copy on your phone but not the data on the server.

Your rights under the DPDP Act, 2023

If you are in India you have the right to:

Access: ask for a summary of the personal data we hold about you, what we do with it, and who we have shared it with. You can also export your spaces and loans from the app at any time.
Correction and updating: change your name and UPI ID in the app, or ask us to correct, complete or update anything else.
Erasure: delete your account in the app, or ask us to, with the limits described above for records you share with other people.
Withdraw consent: at any time, by deleting your account. This does not affect what was done before you withdrew, and the app cannot work without an account.
Nominate: name another person to exercise these rights if you die or become unable to.
Grievance redressal: complain to us and receive a response, as set out below.

To use any of these, email settlo@hellojosh.studio. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to confirm that you control the phone number concerned before acting.

Grievances

Send complaints about how your personal data is handled to settlo@hellojosh.studio. We will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Children

Settlo is not directed at anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe someone under 18 has an account, write to us and we will delete it within 30 days.

Security and breaches

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.

This website

This site sets no cookies, runs no scripts and loads nothing from third parties. It is hosted on GitHub Pages; GitHub, as the host, receives your IP address when you load a page.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we will update this page and its effective date. If a change affects how your data is used, we will say so here before it takes effect.