Credit Information Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Fair Go Finance Pty Ltd trading as Fair Go Finance; (“we”/”us”/”our”) endeavour at all times to comply with the Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principles and the Credit Reporting Code which together will be referred to in this policy as “Australian Privacy Law.”

This Credit Information Privacy Policy is subject and in addition to our General Privacy Policy. It applies to you if:

• You apply to us for one of our credit products;

• You receive credit from us; or

• We otherwise hold credit information about you or information about your eligibility for credit or credit worthiness.

2.  What kinds of credit information do we collect, hold, use and disclose?

As well as and in addition to the information collected under our General Privacy Policy, if you apply for credit from us we may collect:

• Identification information;

• Financial Information including:

-          Income (from all sources including government benefits) and current employment status and recent history;

-          Assets;

-          Expenses;

-          Debts;

-          Statements of Deposit Accounts with financial institutions for the 90 days prior to you making your application to us for consumer credit and for longer periods if you receive consumer credit from us.

·         Consumer credit liability information about the consumer credit accounts you hold whether with us or some other credit provider including:

-          Type of account;

-          If a credit account, then the maximum amount of credit approved;

-          Other specific terms and conditions of the account.

• Information about your credit application including:

-          The type of credit, whether consumer or commercial;

-          The amount of credit sought.

• Whether we made an information request about you to a credit Information Privacy body.

• Credit related information about the consumer credit accounts you hold with us, which, after giving you notice as required by the Australian Privacy Laws, we may disclose to a credit reporting body as part of Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR) or which has already been disclosed to a credit reporting body by another credit provider including:

-          Default information about you when you have failed to make a payment owed by you to us or some other credit provider which remains overdue for more than 60 days;

-          Repayment information about you which discloses on a monthly basis for up to 24 months that you have made a due payment or an overdue payment (‘missed payment’) whether to us or to another credit provider;

-          Serious Credit Infringement information;

-          Any application you make to us as an enquiry (‘a credit enquiry’);

·         Information about your credit application including:

-       The maximum amount of credit approved;

-       Type of loan account;

-       Date account was opened and, if applicable, closed date;

-       Secured loan or unsecured loan;

-       Sole loan or joint loan;

-          Other specific terms and conditions of the account.

• Payment information which discloses that you have made an overdue payment (‘missed payment’) whether to us or to another credit provider

• New payment information about you as to the terms and conditions of any variation in the payments required under your credit contract with us or with another credit provider.

• Court proceedings information about a judgment of any Australian court that was made against you in relation to any credit that was provided to or applied for by you.

• Personal insolvency information which has been recorded in the National Personal Insolvency Index maintained by the Insolvency and Trustee Service of Australia relating to any bankruptcy, debt agreement, debt agreement proposal or a personal insolvency agreement executed by you, and any direction or order made under the Bankruptcy that relates to your property.

• Publicly available information about you that is not otherwise described above but which is relevant to your credit worthiness.

• Serious credit infringement information which relates to credit which we or some other credit provider has provided to you to the effect that you:

-          Fraudulently obtained credit;

-          Fraudulently evaded payments under a credit contract;

-          Are not able to be contacted at the last known addresses supplied to us or have not been in contact with us for 6 months; or

-          Are otherwise no longer intending to comply with your credit obligations.

3.  How do we collect credit information?

We collect credit information in the same ways we collect personal information as described in our General Privacy Policy and, additionally:

• We collect credit information about you from you directly such as in an application form for credit; and

• We collect credit information about you from the time of the commencement of the loan to the closure, if applicable, of the loan; and

• We collect credit information about you from Credit Information Privacy bodies.

·         We may collect credit information about you from Nimble Australia Pty Ltd, an associated company of Fair Go Finance, if you provide personal information to that company.

4.  How do we hold your credit information?

We hold and keep secure your credit information in the same ways as all your personal information as described in our General Privacy Policy.

5.  How do we disclose your credit information? 

5a). Comprehensive Credit Reporting

New laws have enabled more information to be included on credit reports, which is known as Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR).  Subject to the provision of sufficient notification to our customers and consent of our customers, as required by Australian law, we engage in Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR) to one or more of the credit reporting bodies (CRBs).   Previously there was credit enquiry information and negative information like defaults.  As a result of CCR, positive information, such as repayments that are made on time can be included.  This approach gives a fairer and more accurate picture of your credit worthiness and supports responsible lending.  This credit related information is now reflected in credit reports.

5b). Notifiable Matters

The law requires us to advise you of ‘notifiable matters’ in relation to how we may disclose and use your credit information. A Statement of Notifiable Matters is on our website: www.fairgofinance.com.au  This Statement can be downloaded or you may request to have it provided to you in an alternative form by emailing us at info@fairgofinance.com.au or by calling us on 1300 324 746.   A brief description of the key issues contained in this Statement are detailed in this Section.

In order to obtain credit information about you from credit reporting bodies (CRBs) we may be required to disclose to them credit information about you which we hold. Those credit reporting bodies may then include that credit information about you in reports they provide to other credit providers.

This includes all the credit information described above with the exception of your Financial Information.  It does, however, particularly include the following:

-       Information about your credit application; and

-       Any application you make to us as an enquiry (‘a credit enquiry’); and

-       If you fail to meet your repayment obligations in relation to consumer credit provided by us under your consumer credit contract, for example as a result of an overdue payment (‘missed payment’); and

-       When your arrears are or exceed a specified payment amount or time frame as set out by legislation or guidelines; and

-       A payment default information for the arrears or the full amount due if we chose to accelerate the debt; and

-       The maximum amount of credit approved; and

-       Type of loan account; and

-       Date account was opened and, if applicable, closed date; and

-       If it was a secured loan or unsecured loan; and

-       If it was a sole or joint loan; and

-       Other specific terms and conditions of the account; and

-       If you commit a serious credit infringement in relation to consumer credit provided by us under your consumer credit contract.

The credit reporting bodies to which we may disclose your credit information are:

Equifax Pty Ltd (previously known as Veda Advantage Ltd)

Website: www.equifax.com.au

Illion (previously known as Dun & Bradstreet)

Website:  www.illion.com.au

Experian

Website: www.experian.com.au

We refer you to the Privacy Policy of these credit reporting bodies. 

If we provide information about your credit application to a credit reporting body, this may affect decisions by other credit providers as to whether they provide credit to you and on what terms.

If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to any finance that we have provided or arranged or you have committed a serious credit infringement, then we may disclose this information to a credit reporting body.

Sometimes your credit information will be used by credit reporting bodies for the purposes of ‘pre-screening’ credit offers on the request of other credit providers. You can contact the credit reporting body at any time to request that your credit information is not used in this way for direct marketing.

You may contact the credit reporting body to advise them that you believe on reasonable grounds that you may have been, or are likely to be a victim of fraud.  For a period of 21 days after the credit reporting body receives your notification, the credit reporting body must not use or disclose that credit information in the credit report.

You can contact any of the credit reporting bodies for more information.

You have the right to request access to the credit information that we hold about you and make a request for us to correct that credit information and to make a complaint to us. You may access your credit information held by us in the same way and subject to the same restrictions as you may access any of your personal information held by us, as described in our General Privacy Policy.

We may also disclose your credit information to Nimble Australia Pty Ltd, an associated company of Fair Go Finance.

6.  The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your credit information

In addition to those purposes described in our General Privacy Policy, we collect, hold, use and disclose your credit information to:

• Assess your credit application and that of any proposed guarantors of your credit;

• Manage your credit contract;

• Consider any application for variation of your payments whether or not on the grounds of hardship;

• Collect any debt or otherwise enforce any rights whether by court proceedings or otherwise arising under your credit contract;

• Assist you if we consider you may be at risk of default;

• Deal with a credit reporting body and provide information to credit reporting bodies as described above;

• Undertake securitisation activities or any assignment of debt;

• Deal with any complaint by you through our Internal Dispute Resolution process or through our External Dispute Resolution scheme as described in our General Privacy Policy;

• To identify you as required by the Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorism Financing Act;

• Meet our legal requirements including Information Privacy to relevant authorities;

• To conduct Comprehensive Credit Reporting;

• Assist other credit providers and alternative service providers including those offering credit repair services, consumer leases and budgeting services with the same purposes as permitted by Australian Privacy law such as disclosing credit information to them with your consent or where you have committed a serious credit infringement.

We shall not disclose your credit information to any other party for the purposes of direct marketing though we may disclose other personal information for that purpose as described in our General Privacy Policy.

7.  Whether we supply your personal information to overseas recipients

We may supply your credit information to overseas recipients such as those mentioned in our General Privacy Policy as part of our information technology systems for the purposes described above. Those recipients to be in the following countries: the United States of America and South Africa.

We shall not provide credit information and credit worthiness or credit eligibility information to overseas entities except as permitted by Australian Privacy Law.

8.  How you may access your credit information held by us

You may access your credit information held by us in the same way and subject to the same restrictions as you may access any of your personal information held by us as described in our General Privacy Policy.

There is no charge to make a request for access to your credit information but we may apply an administration fee for providing access to your credit information.

We cannot give you access to credit information held about you by any credit reporting body whether that body obtained the information from us or not. We refer you to the Privacy Policy of that credit reporting body.

9.  How you may seek correction of the credit information we hold about you

You may apply to correct the credit information we hold about you in the same way and subject to the same restrictions as you may do so for any of your personal information held by us and as described in our General Privacy Policy.

We will deal with your request according to Australian Privacy Law and provide you our response and/or reasons within 7 business days and notify you of our decision no later than 30 days after receiving your request.

If we have supplied credit information which we have agreed to correct to a credit reporting body, we will notify that body within 7 business days of making that decision.

10.  How you may complain about how we deal with your credit information

If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your credit information, please contact our Privacy Officer in the same way as is described in our General Privacy Policy.

Again, if you are not satisfied with our Internal Dispute Resolution Process in relation to credit information, you may refer your complaint to our External Dispute Resolution scheme as described in our General Privacy Policy or to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

11.  Changes to this policy

We may change this policy for the same reasons and in the same manner and with the same notice as is described in our General Privacy Policy.

12. Obtaining a copy of this policy

You can request that a copy of this Credit Information Privacy Policy be emailed or posted to you, either by emailing us at info@fairgofinance.com.au or by calling us on 1300 324 746

-------------------