Credit One Pty Ltd, ACN 119 629 113 and Credit One Equipment Finance Pty Ltd, ACN 135 940 813, also trading as Approved Car Loans (‘CO’ & ‘COEF’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) is committed to protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal and credit information (information). In handling your credit information, we are bound by, and comply with, the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and the Credit Reporting Privacy Code (Code).
This privacy policy sets out how we collect and manage your information, how you can access that information if you wish and how you can complain if you are not satisfied with our policies and processes.
1. Collection and storage of personal information
We collect information from, and about, you to, as appropriate:
- respond to your enquiries about the finance products or insurances we can source for you
- assess your credit application and source the finance and insurances you require
- assess the application for finance made by a company of which you are a director
- assess your application to guarantee the repayment of finance we are sourcing
- provide customer support
- promote our products and services
- manage any complaints
We also use the information we collect to:
- manage your application
- develop new products, policies and procedures
- undertake market research
- obtain legal and compliance advice about our obligations
- meet our regulatory and legal obligations
The information we collect may include personal identification, contact details, financial information, lending and default history, banking details, personal and trade references and employment or business history, depending on the relationship you wish to have with us. If you choose not to provide this information, our ability to assist you may be restricted.
Wherever possible, we will collect your information directly from you should you wish us to source finance and insurances for you. We may obtain personal information about you from a third party, such as your accountant or a credit reporting body, where authorised. Wherever possible we will tell you who we need to contact and why.
We may also collect information from you if you choose to use our website to communicate with us. We will collect the information you provide through our interactive facilities, such as customer enquiry, online finance application or comment forms.
In some circumstances, dealers, accountants, referees, external dispute resolution schemes, your agents and government bodies may provide us with your information. The circumstances in which third parties provide us with information include purchase or service requirements, finance applications, account management and complaints.
We take steps to protect any information we collect so it will be safeguarded from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, use, disclosure or modification.
The law may require us to retain your personal information for a period of time after our business dealings have finished. It is securely stored and disposed of, or de-identified, when no longer required.
2. Website information collection
When you visit our website, our ISP host records a range of information, including your server address, domain name, the date and time of the visit and the pages viewed. This information may be collected by using cookies which is data sent to your web browser. This allows our site to interact more efficiently with your computer.
If you disable the use of cookies, your use of our site may be affected. Information collected about your visit to our site is retained for statistical and website development reasons and is not in a form which would enable us to identify you.
When visiting our site, you will not be required to provide us with any personal information unless you request information about our services or respond to a promotion. If you do, we will ask you to provide contact details along with other information required to respond to your contact with us.
We may also retain that information provided for planning purposes. It may also be used for direct marketing purposes unless you tell us you do not wish to receive marketing material.
3. Use and disclosure
We use your information to source the finance and insurances you require, assess your suitability to be a guarantor and perform other functions and activities associated with managing our relationship.
Those functions and activities can include our internal administration, preliminary credit assessment, account management, product or service development, compliance audits/reviews, marketing, complaints management, planning and research requirements as well as future offers to you.
Where you, as an individual, apply for finance through us, or agree to act as a guarantor, you authorise how we may collect, use and disclose your personal and credit information in the Privacy Statement and Consent we ask you to sign before we consider your application for credit or to be a guarantor.
We will disclose your information to third parties only as the Privacy Act permits and where there is a valid reason to do so. All third parties must use your information only for the specific purpose for which we supply it.
Third parties may include:
- Prospective credit providers and/or insurers
- Employees, contractors, auditors and advisers
- Credit reporting bodies
- Service providers (e.g. computer systems consultants, document custodians, mailing houses etc) to enable them to perform those services)
- Your agents, including your accountant or legal or financial advisor, where required
- Insurers, insurance brokers and insurance assessors
- Debt collection agencies
- Referees, where authorised
- Companies to which we are related
- Government authorities and law enforcement agencies, as required by law only.
We may also provide your information to, and receive your information from, a credit reporting body (CRB), if you authorise us to obtain a report on your behalf.
Any information shared with, or by, a CRB is held in electronic form, trackable through the CRB or our systems by time, date, account and user.
Where information is provided to our service providers in the following countries: India and Philippines, we require them to comply with our information management policies and procedures so your information has the same protections as if managed in Australia.
4. Information Access
You can access the personal and/or credit information we hold about you by contacting us in any of the ways shown in (6) below.
You can also access the information the CRB holds about you by contacting them for a copy of that information at:
Equifax Pty Ltd
- Contact: www.equifax.com.au/contact
- Address: PO Box 964, North Sydney NSW 2060
- Phone: 1300 921 621
- Website: www.equifax.com.au
If any information is incorrect, out of date or incomplete, you have the right to have that information updated and corrected. If, for any valid reason, we refuse to correct your information, we will explain why.
5. Complaints and Concerns
Please contact us if you have any complaints or queries about how we manage your information or you no longer wish to receive marketing materials. You can contact us by mail, phone or email, as listed in (6) below.
If you lodge a complaint, our Internal Dispute Resolution officer will investigate your complaint. We will commence the investigation within 2 days and provide you with a response within 14 days. We will seek your agreement to a longer time if it is needed. We will keep you informed of the investigation process by phone or email at least once a week and provide you with a written response to your complaint within 30 days.
If you do not accept our response, you may take the compliant to our External Dispute Resolution Scheme. Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) contact details are:
AFCA
- Phone: 1800 931 678
- Fax: (03) 9613 7399
- Email: info@afca.org.au
- Website: www.afca.org.au
- Mail: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001 (Australia)
6. Obtaining our privacy policy
This privacy policy may change over time. You can obtain the current version from our website or by contacting us by any of the contact methods below.
- Email: info@creditone.com.au
- Address: PO Box 4836 Eight Mile Plains Q 4113
- Phone: 07 3103 9401
- Website: www.creditone.com.au
