Privacy & Complaints.

What we collect, and what we use it for.

We collect personal information when we assist you with your finance or credit needs. That may include:

• Personal details such as your name, date of birth, address and contact information
• Identification documents
• Financial information — income, assets, liabilities and bank statements
• Credit-related information
• Sensitive information, including health information, where it is relevant and permitted
• Anything you choose to tell us about vulnerabilities or special circumstances

We use it to assess, advise on and assist with your credit needs. We only disclose it to the lenders, insurers, service providers or other parties you choose to engage with, and to their representatives.

We may also use your information to:

• Provide product or service information you have asked for
• Manage our ongoing relationship with you, including administration and communication
• Conduct client surveys or service reviews
• Improve our internal processes and the quality of our service

We may contact you by mail, phone or electronically unless you tell us otherwise.

Marketing.

From time to time we may let you know about promotions, new services, special offers, events or articles we think are relevant to you, by post or electronically.

You can opt out at any time by contacting us, and we will update your preferences promptly.

If you don’t give us what we ask for.

If the information you provide is incomplete or inaccurate, we may not be able to properly assess your situation or assist you with your credit or finance needs.

How we hold and protect it.

We take reasonable steps to make sure the personal information we hold is accurate, up to date, complete and secure. It is stored in secure electronic databases, and in physical files held securely at our premises.

We use appropriate safeguards — including access controls, encryption and secure storage — to protect your information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, or to meet legal, regulatory and professional record-keeping requirements.

Who we disclose it to.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We may disclose it to:

• Our credit licensee, for compliance, supervision and administration
• Lenders, insurers, valuers and other service providers involved in your application
• Contractors and service providers who assist us, such as IT, document handling and communications
• Other entities in the event of a business sale, merger or reorganisation

Where we do disclose information, we take reasonable steps to make sure the recipient handles it consistently with this policy. We may also disclose information where the law requires or permits it.

Overseas recipients.

Some recipients of your personal information may be located overseas. It isn’t practical to list every country, but this may include the Philippines, India and Nepal.

By engaging our services you consent to your personal information being disclosed to overseas recipients where that is required to deliver the service.

Accessing and correcting your information.

You can ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it if you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. There is no fee for either request. Please put it in writing to:

Your consent.

By asking us to assist with your credit or finance needs, you consent to your personal information being collected, used and disclosed as described here.

Complaints.

If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, or about anything else we have done, tell us so we can deal with it. You can raise it in writing, by phone or electronically, and the more detail you give us the faster we can look into it.

The same goes the other way. If one of us has done something well, we’d like to know that too — it’s how we work out what to keep doing.

How we resolve them.

We will acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours and work to resolve it as quickly as we can. In the rare case that we are still investigating after 30 days, we will write to explain why and tell you when we expect to be finished.

Once we have completed our investigation we will write to you with the outcome and the reasons for our decision. You can contact us at any point in the meantime for an update — just refer to your earlier message so we can find it quickly.

Taking it further.

We hope you’ll be satisfied with how we deal with your complaint. If your concerns remain unresolved, or you haven’t heard from us within 30 days, you can have the complaint heard by an independent party — the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

Time limits apply to complaints made to AFCA, so act promptly. Their website sets out whether a limit applies to your circumstances and when it expires.