Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a statement that explains in simple language how an organization or agency handles your personal information. Any organization or agency the Privacy Act 1988 covers must have a privacy policy.

What must be included

A privacy policy must tell you:

• name and contact details.
• what kinds of personal information is collected and stored.
• how we collect personal information and where it is stored.
• how the customer can access the personal information, or ask for a correction.
• how to lodge a complaint if the customer thinks we have mishandled their information, and how we will handle complaints.
• if we are likely to disclose information outside Australia and, if practical, which countries we are likely to disclose the information to.

A website or displayed on a mobile device’s screen. Source: OAIC.GOV.AU

• the reasons why we need to collect personal information
• how we use and disclose personal information

The following Privacy Policy, courtesy of the MFAA in collaboration with Denton Lawyers. The document should be updated to reflect the broker’s situation.

Who are we? ‘We,’ ‘us,’ and ‘our’ refer to Because Finance Pty Ltd  ACN 667 683 203 Australian Credit Licence 549743 and our related businesses.

Our commitment to protect your privacy We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our privacy policy commitment in respect of the personal information (including credit-related information) we hold about you and what we do with that information.

We recognize that any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes we have collected it or as allowed under the law. It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way that ensures protection of your personal information.

Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and Part IIIA of the Privacy Act, the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 and any other relevant law.

Personal information When we refer to personal information, we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent. This information may include information or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include credit-related information.

Credit-related information means:

• Credit information, which includes your identity: the type, terms and maximum amount of credit provided to you, including when that credit was provided and when it was repaid; repayment history information; financial hardship information (including information that any repayments are affected by a financial hardship arrangement); default information (including overdue payments); payment information; new arrangement information; details of any serious credit infringements; court proceedings information; personal insolvency information and publicly available information; and;
• Credit eligibility information, which is credit reporting information supplied to us by a credit reporting body, and any information that we derive from it.

We use your credit-related information to assess your eligibility to be provided with any finance. Usually, credit-related information is exchanged between credit and finance providers and credit reporting bodies.

The kinds of personal information we may collect about you include your name, date of birth, address, account details, occupation, and any other information we may need to identify you. [OPTION] When you use our website or mobile applications, we may collect information about your location or activity, including IP address, telephone number and whether you have accessed third party sites, the date and time of visits, the pages that are viewed, information about the device used and other user location information. We collect some of this information using cookies (for more information please see the Website Terms of Use/Policy at [INSERT LINK]

If you are applying for finance or provide a guarantee we may also collect the number and ages of your dependents and cohabitants, the length of time at your current address, your employment details and proof of earnings and expenses. If you apply for any insurance product through us, we may collect information about what is being insured, the beneficiaries and your health information including medical and lifestyle information from you or your health professionals. We will only collect health information from you with your consent.

Why we collect your personal information We collect personal information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance, establishing your identity, contacting you, managing our risk and to comply with our legal obligations. [We may also collect your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing and managing our relationship with you. Improvements in technology also enable organizations like ours to collect and use information to get a more integrated view of our customers. From time to time we may offer you other products and services.

How do we collect your personal information? Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may collect information about you that is publicly available, for example from public registers or social media, or made available by third parties. [We may also collect your personal information from credit reporting bodies, mortgage and finance brokers, employers and other people such as accountants and lawyers.

We will not ask you to supply personal information publicly over Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform that we use. [

Do we disclose your personal information? We may disclose your personal information:

• to prospective funders or other intermediaries in relation to your finance requirements
• to other organizations that are involved in managing or administering your finance such as third-party suppliers, printing and postal services, call centers, lenders mortgage insurers, trade insurers and credit reporting bodies
• to associated businesses that may want to market products to you
• to companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us
• to our agents, contractors, external service providers to outsource certain functions, for example, statement production, debt recovery and information technology support
• to any person or entity who represents you, including finance brokers, lawyers, mortgage brokers, guardians, persons holding power of attorney and accountants
• to any person or entity, where you have provided us consent
• other guarantors or borrowers (if more than one) or prospective borrowers including in relation to any credit you guarantee or propose to guarantee
• to our auditors, insurers, reinsurers and health care providers
• to claims related providers, such as assessors and investigators who help us with claims
• where we are authorized to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth), government and law enforcement agencies or regulators
• to investors, agents or advisers, trustees, rating agencies or any entity that has an interest in your finance or our business
• to other financial institutions, for example, to process a claim for mistaken payment
• organizations that provide products or services used or marketed by us or
• to your employer, former employer, referees or identity verification services.

Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organization, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:

• the person or organization has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment, or
• you have consented to us making the disclosure.

Credit related information We exchange credit-related information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance. If you propose to be a guarantor, one of our checks may involve obtaining a credit report about you.

This credit-related information may be held by us in electronic form on our secure servers and may also be held in paper form. We may use cloud storage to store the credit-related information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia. [

When we obtain credit eligibility information from a credit reporting body about you, we may also seek publicly available information and information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed.

We may disclose your credit-related information to overseas entities that provide support functions to us. You may obtain more information about these entities by contacting us. If we disclose your credit-related information to entities that are located overseas, we ensure that appropriate data handling and security arrangements are in place.

Direct marketing From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about finance, offers you may find of interest, changes to our organization, or new products or services being offered by us or any company with whom we are associated.

If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may at any time decline to receive such information by telephoning us at 0408 575 117 or by writing to us at laura@becausefinance.com]. If the direct marketing is by email you may also use the unsubscribe function. We will not charge you for giving effect to your request and will take all reasonable steps to meet your request at the earliest possible opportunity.

Updating your personal information It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. During the course of our relationship with you, we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed.

If you wish to make any changes to your personal information, you may contact us. We will generally rely on you to ensure the information we hold about you is accurate or complete.

You must notify us of any changes to your personal information that are required by any contracts you have with us

Access and correction to your personal and credit information We will provide you with access to the personal and credit-related information we hold about you. You may request access to any of the personal information we hold about you at any time. We may charge a fee for our costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you.

Depending on the type of request that you make we may respond to your request immediately, otherwise, we will usually respond within seven days of receiving your request. We may need to contact other entities to properly investigate your request.

There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal or credit-related information, for example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, if your request is vexatious or if the information is commercially sensitive.

An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access to the personal or credit-related information we hold about you.

If any of the personal or credit-related information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out of date you may request that we correct the information by telephoning us on 0408 575 117 or by writing to us 245 St Kilda road, St Kilda VIC 3182

If appropriate we will correct the personal information at the time of the request. Otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request. Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected the personal or credit-related information within 30 days.

We may need to consult with other finance providers or credit reporting bodies or entities as part of our investigation.

If we refuse to correct personal or credit-related information we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.

Business without identifying you In most circumstances, it will be necessary for us to identify you to successfully do business with you. However, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information, for example, if you make general inquiries about interest rates or current promotional offers.

Sensitive information We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent. Sensitive information is personal information that includes information relating to your racial or ethnic origin, political persuasion, memberships in trade or professional associations or trade unions, sexual preferences, criminal record, or health.

How safe and secure is your personal information that we hold? We will take a range of measures and reasonable steps to protect your personal information. Your personal information will always be stored in a secure environment. We may store your personal information in paper and electronic form. We will also take reasonable steps to protect any personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

Complaints If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act and the Credit Reporting Code, you may contact our complaints officer on [0408 575 117

We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days and aim to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days.

If you are dissatisfied with the response of our complaints officer, you may make a complaint to our External Dispute Resolution Scheme, Australian Financial Complaints Authority who can be contacted by phone on 1800 931 678 or by email at info@afca.org.au; or the Office of the Australian Commissioner who can be contacted at oaic.gov.au or by phone on 1300 363 992.

Further information You may request further information about the way we manage your personal or credit-related information by contacting us.

We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and market practice.

As a consequence, we may change this policy from time to time or as the need arises. We will post any changes to this policy on our website.

You may request this policy in an alternative form by telephoning us on 0408575117 or by writing to us at 245 St Kilda Road, St Kilda VIC 3182

This privacy and credit reporting policy came into existence on 7/2/2024