Franklin Resources
Financials
45
out of 100. Number 259 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Franklin Resources does well
- Arbitration 3 of 20. Few problems found.
- Renewals 2 of 20. Few problems found.
- No forced arbitration for retail website users — disputes under the Terms of Use go to state/federal courts in San Mateo, California (unusual compared with peers' mandatory binding arbitration). The investor privacy notice states 'We do not sell individual investors' non-public personal information to anyone.' Sharing your data with other Franklin Templeton companies requires them to first offer you the opportunity to prevent it.
- The site honors the Global Privacy Control signal and provides a 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' opt-out page plus a US Privacy Rights Request Form (know, access, delete, correct, appeal, no-discrimination rights described).
- It states it does not collect personal information directly from children under 18, does not sell minors' data, and does not direct targeted advertising to minors. Employees are required to follow confidentiality procedures and physical/electronic safeguards are described.
Franklin Templeton can rewrite the site's terms whenever it wants without telling you, and just by continuing to use the site you are treated as having agreed to the new terms.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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Franklin Templeton can rewrite the site's terms whenever it wants without telling you, and just by continuing to use the site you are treated as having agreed to the new terms.
We reserve the right to change the Site and the Terms of Use at any time, without notice. If you use the Site after the amended Terms of Use have been posted, you will be deemed to have agreed to the Terms of Use, as amended.
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The agreement covering online access to your investment accounts can be changed unilaterally at any time, with no advance notice — new terms take effect the moment they are posted on the site.
Franklin Templeton may change the Electronic Services we offer on our website at any time and without prior notice. We may also amend the terms of this Agreement at any time without prior notice to you. All changes will be effective upon the posting of the revised Agreement.
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No matter what goes wrong on their website — even trading losses, stolen data, or gross negligence — the most you can ever recover under these terms is $100.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FRANKLIN TEMPLETON PARTIES' AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU EXCEED ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100).
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If someone makes unauthorized transactions on your investment account, Franklin Templeton is not on the hook for your losses as long as it followed its own security procedures — and you also accept the risk that emailing them sensitive information may lack confidentiality. Their Terms of Use separately disclaim responsibility if 'hackers could breach our security procedures.'
Provided that FTI follows reasonable security procedures and acts on information or instructions we reasonably believe are genuine, we will not be responsible for any expenses or losses that may occur from unauthorized requests.
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They can cut off your access to the site at any time for any reason — or no reason — without warning and without owing you anything.
You acknowledge and agree that Franklin Templeton may restrict, suspend or terminate the Terms of Use or your access to, and use, of the all or any part of Site, including any links to third-party sites, at any time, with or without cause, including but not limited to any breach of the Terms of Use, in Franklin Templeton's absolute discretion and without prior notice or liability.
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Your private financial data can be shared across all Franklin Templeton companies and with outside companies that help with their marketing. They must give you a chance to opt out of affiliate sharing, but opting out of the sale/sharing of your data generally requires you to take action yourself (privacy-request form or phone call). The notice also says the site ignores legacy 'Do Not Track' browser signals (it does honor the newer Global Privacy Control).
To better service your accounts and process transactions or services you requested, we may share non-public personal information with other Franklin Templeton companies... We will only share non-public personal information with outside parties in the limited circumstances permitted by law. For example, this includes situations where we need to share information with companies who work on our behalf to service or maintain your account or process transactions you requested, when the disclosure is to companies assisting us with our own marketing efforts...
Privacy Notice (Investor privacy notice — Disclosure policy)
How these were found
Documents read via browser_open on Oct 1, 2026, all fetched directly from the official franklintempleton.com domain (no mirrors needed). (1) Terms of Use — https://www.franklintempleton.com/corporate/help-legal/terms — no 'last updated' date is displayed on the page. (2) Privacy Notice — https://www.franklintempleton.com/help/privacy-policy — marked 'Last Updated January 1, 2026'; includes the US investor privacy notice (also dated January 1, 2026). (3) Electronic Services Agreement — https://www.franklintempleton.com/help/electronic-services-agreement — marked 'effective July 2020'. Binding arbitration (FINRA/AAA) was found only in Franklin Distributors' dealer selling agreements (B2B documents, e.g. a 2010 Form of Selling Agreement seen via a Law Insider search snippet) — not in retail customer-facing documents. Franklin Templeton's retail mutual-fund accounts are not brokerage accounts, so FINRA arbitration is not imposed on retail investors. No auto-renew/cancellation trap was found in the public retail documents (automatic investment programs for 529 plans are described as user-elected services). No specific data-retention time table is published; only the vague criteria quoted below.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.