‘We’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refer to Acceptance Finance Pty Ltd ACN 098 164 026, Australian Credit Licence 391715 and our related businesses.
We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our privacy policy commitment in respect of personal information we hold about you and what we do with that information.
We recognise 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 which ensures protection of your personal information.
Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles for the protection of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act and any other relevant law.
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 information.
Credit information is information which is used to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance and may include any finance that you have outstanding, your repayment history in respect of those loans, and any defaults. Usually, credit 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 made need to identify you.
If you are applying for finance, we may also collect the ages and number of your dependants 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 also collect your health information. We will only collect health information from you with your consent.
We collect personal information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance. We may also collect your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing and managing our relationship with you. From time to time, we may offer you other products and services.
To enable us to maintain a successful business relationship with you, we may disclose your personal information to other organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us. We may also disclose your personal information to any other organisation that may have or is considering having an interest in your finance, or in our business.
Where reasonable and practical we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may also collect your personal information from finance brokers and other people such as accountants and lawyers.
We may disclose your personal information:
• to prospective funders or other intermediaries in relation to your finance requirements;
• to other organisations that are involved in managing or administering your finance such as third-party suppliers, printing and postal services, call centres;
• to associated businesses that may want to market products to you;
• to companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us;
• to anybody who represents you, such as finance brokers, lawyers and accountants;
• to anyone, where you have provided us consent;
• where we are required to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money or Laundering and Courter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth);
• to investors, agents or advisers, or any entity that has an interest in our business; or
• to your employer, referees or identity verification services.
Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:
(a) the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment, or
(b) you have consented to us making the disclosure.
We may use cloud storage to store the personal information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia.
From time-to-time, to ensure timely processing of finance applications, we may engage the services of external processing companies. These company’s administrative functions will be based in the Philippines. These companies are subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
Acceptance Finance is part of the Apt Wealth Group of Companies which includes Apt Wealth Partners, Apt Wealth Legal Services, and Apt Wealth USA.
We may share your personal information between these entities. We do this to assist in providing services to you in a timely and efficient manner.
All entities are bound by this Privacy Policy and must protect your information in accordance with this policy.
We will seek your consent to share information if the information is considered “Sensitive” (see definition of sensitive personal information in Section 12 of this Privacy Policy).
Sensitive information will only be shared with these entities after we have received your consent. You can revoke this consent at any time.
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 organisation, 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 on 03 9854 3500 or by writing to us at Level 3a, 379 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn, Vic 3103. 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.
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.
We will provide you with access to the personal 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 usually respond to you 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 information, for example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, or if your request is vexatious.
An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access to the personal information we hold about you.
If any of the personal information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out of date you may request that we correct the information. 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 information within 30 days.
We may need to consult with other entities as part of our investigation.
If we refuse to correct personal information we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.
If we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we do not use or disclose this information other than required by law. We will never use a government identifier in order to identify you.
Business without identifying you
In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order 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.
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.
We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information by storing it 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 unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
You should note that there are inherent security risks in transmitting information via email, online or through the internet. You should assess these potential risks when deciding how you want to transmit information, including through our website or client portal.
If you do not wish to transmit information via email, online or through the internet, please contact us for other ways in which you can provide this information to us.
A ‘cookie’ is a small text file that may be placed on a computer by a web server. Our website may use cookies which may enable us to identify you or your browser while you are using our site. These cookies may be permanently stored on a computer or are temporary session cookies.
They are used for a variety of purposes, including security and personalisation of services. They are frequently used on websites, and you can choose if and how a cookie will be accepted by configuring your preferences and options in your browser.
Most browsers allow you to be notified when you receive a cookie and you may elect to either accept it or not. If you wish not to accept a cookie, this may impact the effectiveness of the website. Your internet service provider or other IT service provider should be able to assist you with setting your preferences.
We may record phone call conversations and meetings between you and Acceptance Finance. We do for the specific purpose of preparing an accurate record of our conversations and meetings with you as well as for training and quality control purposes.
If a conversation or meeting is recorded, you will be notified at the commencement of the conversation or meeting either by a pre-recorded message or as a verbal statement from an Acceptance Finance Staff member. You can withdraw the consent to have a conversation or meeting recorded at any time.
If you do not wish for the phone conversation or meeting to be recorded, please inform the Acceptance Finance Staff member and the recording function will be disabled.
The recording of the conversation or meeting will only be retained temporarily and then permanently deleted. The recording of the conversation cannot be recovered after it has been permanently deleted.
Your information may be disclosed overseas in order to provide you with our services. Your personal information may be located in the Philippines where we receive administrative and paraplanning support.
Information is maintained on the servers of the third-party providers which may be based in Australia and/or overseas. The use of this information is governed by the terms of our business agreement with them and complies with our requirements for the protection of your information under the Privacy Act.
Overseas entities are covered by equivalent privacy protections as well as the privacy law within local jurisdictions.
The Privacy Act applies to all uses of Artificial Intelligence involving personal information. Acceptance Finance may use Artificial intelligence specifically for the collection, analysis, and generation of your personal information. Acceptance Finance may use commercially available Artificial Intelligence Products selected after a review of their privacy and security measures. Acceptance Finance also regularly monitors our Artificial Intelligence product providers.
All information gathering using Artificial Intelligence is maintained in a secure environment and is not shared with a third party. Acceptance Finance is aware of the limitations in relation to the accuracy of Artificial Intelligence and we regularly train our staff on the use, limitations, and risks of using Artificial Intelligence.
Acceptance Finance has a robust cyber security program to protect the data and sensitive information of our clients.
This program includes backing up and encryption of sensitive information and is consistent with the requirements of the Cyber Security Act 2024. This program is reviewed and tested on a regular basis to include testing of data classification, data handling, data storage, encryption, and data backup to ensure the ongoing security of your information.
Acceptance Finance also has a documented Cyber Incident Response Plan which outlines the steps to be taken in the event of a cyber security incident. This Plan includes protocols for reporting incidents, assessing impact, containing threats and restoring normal operations.
We consider the safety and security of your personal information as important and take all reasonable steps to minimise unauthorised access, loss or misuse.
In the event that your personal information was to be accessed or compromised in any way we would follow our internal procedures in accordance with relevant legislation which may include notification to you and remediating any impact to you. Under Australia’s Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme, entities must assess suspected breaches expeditiously, generally within 30 days.
If you have a concern about the privacy of your information, you may lodge a complaint with us by writing to the Privacy Officer. The Privacy Officer can be contacted by telephoning us on 03 9854 3500 or by writing to Privacy Officer, Level 3a, 379 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn, Vic 3103.
You may also be able to complain to a recognised external dispute resolution scheme of which we are a member. If we have not been able to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction within 30 days, you can contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority of which we are a member.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority can be contacted by telephone on 1800 931 678 or via email at info@afca.org.au. You can also visit the AFCA website at www.afca.org.au.
You may also lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. You can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by:
• Calling the hotline on 1300 363 992
• Visiting the web site – www.oaic.gov.au
• Submitting an online form: https://forms.australia. gov.au/forms/oaic/privacy-complaint/
You may request further information about the way we manage your personal 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 marketplace practices.
As a consequence, we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as the need arises. We also review this policy on an at least annual basis.
You may request this privacy policy in an alternative form.
This Privacy Policy came into existence on 25/02/2014.