Introduction
Ausfinancial Pty Ltd ACN 118 176 631 t/a Swoosh Finance (“we”/”us”/”our”), Australian Credit License Number 387993, endeavour at all times to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles which together will be referred to in this policy as “Australian Privacy Law.”
This General Privacy Policy applies to all persons accessing our website, dealing with us or from whom we otherwise collect personal information. We also collect personal and consumer credit information provided by persons applying for or receiving credit from us and, in doing so, endeavour at all times to comply not only with Australian Privacy Law, in general, but also with the Credit Information Privacy Code. All persons who apply for or receive credit from us or you agree to guarantee another person’s credit from us, will be further protected by our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
Any person who receives credit from us and applies to vary the terms of the payments on the grounds of hardship will be additionally protected by our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
Pseudonyms
You are not required to provide us with your name or any personal information if you do not wish to. You are free to use any name allowed by law. We, however, will not deal further with you without obtaining your real name and other verifiable pieces of personal information.
We are not permitted by law to provide you with consumer credit without obtaining proof of your identity and that is covered in our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
The kinds of personal information we collect
By accessing this website or otherwise dealing with us you agree to our General Privacy Policy in relation to the collection of personal information by the website.
As a result of your visit to our website, we may collect and store information about your visit to this website including:
- the domain name and IP address of the computer from which you accessed the internet;
- the date and time you accessed the website;
- the internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our website;
- the pages you accessed while visiting the website;
- through the use of websites, software and internet tracking devices such as cookies, anonymous identifiers and session variables, we may also collect your email address.
Your internet service provider or the providers of your internet browser software may also collect such information for their own purposes. We are not responsible for the collection, storage and use of such information by these entities and refer you to their respective privacy policies.
As a result of you dealing further with us, whether as a prospective customer, an actual customer, guarantor, contractor, supplier or service provider, we may collect and store personal information from you such as:
- your name;
- address, previous addresses and how long you have lived at those addresses;
- date of birth;
- your employer, previous employers and how long you have been in such employment;
- your email address;
- your telephone numbers; and
- the details of any references you supply, including the names and addresses of your referees.
If you apply to us for consumer credit information we will collect and store consumer credit information in addition to the above personal information and this will be governed by our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
If you receive consumer credit from us and you apply to us to vary your payment arrangements under your consumer credit contract due to hardship, you may supply us with sensitive information in addition to the above personal information and other consumer credit information and this will be governed by our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
If you apply to us for employment, we may also collect and store personal and, in addition, sensitive information about you including your:
- education, training and other qualifications;
- work history;
- professional or trade associations or union membership;
- hobbies and other interests; and
- criminal history.
How we collect your personal information
We may collect personal information about you from your visit to our website through the use of technologies such as anonymous identifiers, session variable, and/or cookies. You may be able to set your internet web browser to block or limit cookies. Some features of our website may not work as efficiently or not at all if you have done so.
As a result of you dealing further with us, we may collect personal information directly from you and this may be in person, over the telephone, by mail, over the internet, by email or fax or by completion of an application or consent form whether online or otherwise.
If you:
- apply to us for credit;
- agree to guarantee credit from us to another person;
- receive credit from us;
- apply to us to vary the terms of your payments under your consumer credit contract on the grounds of hardship; or
- apply for employment with us;
We may collect personal, credit and sensitive information about you from other sources when reasonable to do so. Among these other sources may be:
- a credit reporting body;
- someone authorised by you such as an agent, broker, accountant, solicitor, financial counsellor, introducers or a guarantor;
- a referee;
- an employer;
- a government body;
- another financial institution;
- a professional or trade association or trade union;
- our agents
and we may collect that information directly from them in person, over the telephone, by mail, over the internet, by email or fax or by completion of an application or consent form whether online or otherwise.
We use the services of Illion Open Data Solutions Pty Ltd, trading as BankStatements.com.au (ABN 95006399677) (‘Illion’), to retrieve read-only bank statements that help assess your suitability for a loan. These statements may be stored for the purpose of managing your credit and evaluating any future applications you submit with us. Illion may use, disclose, sell, license, reproduce, or distribute data and transaction information, but only in a form that does not contain your personal details. You may review their terms and privacy policies at https://www.bankstatements.com.au/. When you enter your internet login banking credentials of your nominated financial institution within the Illion Bank Statement platform, your details are immediately encrypted and stored securely by Illion. By providing this information, you consent to granting us an ongoing use authorization for the purposes of assessing and managing your credit contract. This includes evaluating any applications for payment variations due to hardship, enforcement action, or for the purposes of refinancing. You may terminate this authorisation by contacting us.
Electronic Communication
By applying for consumer credit with us, you understand, agree, and consent to electronic communications and that:
- paper-based documents may no longer be provided.
- You are responsible for regularly checking electronic communications (e.g., emails, statements, requests for information, responses to hardship requests, documents, notices, and court-related documents in case of default).
- You may withdraw your consent to receive documents electronically at any time.
- We are authorized to provide all information, notices, and documents electronically in accordance with the Electronic Transactions Act 1999, National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, and relevant state civil procedure rules, including but not limited to:
- Notices and disclosure documents related to your credit application (e.g., Credit Guide, suitability assessment).
- Credit contract documents or variations.
- Notices, originating court documents, and any subsequent court documents.
- Any other documents required by law.
- You authorize us to act on any electronic instructions you send (via email or SMS), using the contact details provided in your application, as updated. We may verify instructions if the contact information differs from our records.
How we hold your personal information
We use our best endeavours and take all reasonable steps to secure your personal information including:
- maintenance of a secure environment for storage of information whether in hard copy or in electronic form;
- requiring that access to such information be confined to authorised personnel only;
- using technology such as encryption and password protection to secure any information kept in electronic form.
We are not responsible for the security of any computer or other device which you use to access our website.
The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information
If you are a user of our website, a prospective customer, a customer or guarantor of a customer’s credit, a contractor or supplier of goods and services to us, a job applicant or other person from whom we collect we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information we shall do so only for those purposes which are:
- permitted by Australian Privacy Law;
- necessary for:
- the administration of any contract of supply of goods or services to or by us;
- the provision of our products to our customers;
- the consideration of any proposed guarantee of credit;
- assessment and processing of any job application;
- otherwise for the administration and management of our business;
- better improve website usability;
- required by law;
- in order to investigate or assist with any investigation into any complaint about the conduct of our business, in particular, under Australian Privacy Law;
- to otherwise enforce any term of any contract or other right which arises out of our dealings with you.;
- to communicate with you, by way of marketing, information about our products and services;
- communicate to other financial and referral service providers for marketing purposes; and that as a result of such communication, you may be offered a financial product by another lender based on their credit assessment of your application to us which is not the same type, for a different amount and on different terms than the one for which you have applied for with us. If you do not wish us to do so, you can “opt out” of such communication by informing us in person, by telephone, by facsimile, by post or by email;
- to search and/or register any Personal Property Securities;
- as part of a prospective sale, transfer or restructure of our business; or
- to otherwise communicate with you or the purposes outlined above.
In addition, if you apply to us for consumer credit or receive consumer credit from us, we will collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in order to:
- assess your credit application;
- 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 arising under your consumer credit contract.
To find out more on how we deal with your consumer credit information or sensitive information if you apply to us for consumer credit or receive consumer credit from us, please see our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
We may disclose your personal information, including consumer credit and sensitive information, to other parties as part of a process of merger, acquisition, sale of our business or our other assets and, before doing so, will give you notice and an opportunity to opt out of the provision of such information in that instance.
If, for any of the above purposes, we disclose your personal information to any supplier of services to our business or to any prospective purchaser of our business which we shall do so only if it is necessary for the purposes listed above, we shall:
- do so in accordance with Australian Privacy Law;
- obtain assurances from those suppliers that they comply with Australian Privacy Law.
Whether we supply your personal information to overseas recipients
We do not intend to disclose your personal information overseas, and cannot foresee any circumstance in which the need to do so might arise. We do acknowledge, however, that as part of our backup system, some of your information might be stored overseas (for example if we use “cloud storage”), but the information will not be available to be accessed by any person overseas.
How you may access your personal information held by us
You may request access to your personal, sensitive and credit information held by us by identifying yourself in person, by facsimile or by scanned attachments to an email and sending your request for access to us at:
Email: admin@swoosh.com.au
PO Box 460 Springwood, QLD 4127
If we are unable to grant you access to personal, sensitive or credit information, we will give you our reasons in writing within a reasonable time. These may include where providing the information to you may:
- reveal personal information about another individual person;
- pose a threat to the health or safety of another individual person;
- not be permitted by law;
- reveal internal information of a commercially sensitive nature which is not required to be disclosed to you by Australian Privacy Law.
How you may correct any personal information we hold about you which is incorrect
If you believe any personal information which we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us in person by telephone, by facsimile, by email, identify yourself and tell us what information which we hold about you is, in your belief, incorrect and how you want it changed.
If we cannot agree to the change to the information which you have requested, we will give you reasons in writing.
How you may complain about how we deal with your personal information
If you have any queries or complaints about our collection, use or storage of your personal information (including a complaint relating to any failure by us to comply with our obligations under the credit reporting provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) or under the Credit Reporting Privacy Code), or if you wish to exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal information, please contact complaints@swoosh.com.au and address your email to The Privacy Officer. We will investigate and attempt to resolve any such complaint or dispute regarding the use or disclosure of your personal information.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your complaint, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA):
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Mail: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA)
Telephone: 1800 931 678
Mail: GPO Box 3 Melbourne, VIC 3001
Fax: (03) 9613 6399
Email: info@afca.org.au
Changes to this Policy
From time to time, we may make changes to this General Privacy Policy because of:
- changes to the law;
- changes to technology;
- changes to our systems.
We will notify such changes on our website. Where the changes may affect you in a particular way, and you have a consumer credit contract with us, we will notify you if required \ by Australian Privacy Law and our Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy.
Credit Information and Hardship Privacy Policy
Introduction
Ausfinancial Pty Ltd ACN 118 176 63 t/as Swoosh Finance (“we”/”us”/”our”) endeavour at all times to comply with the Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principles and the Credit Information Privacy Code which together will be referred to in this policy as “Australian Privacy Law”
This Credit Information and Hardship 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;
- you apply for hardship and/or a variation to your credit contract; or
- we otherwise hold credit information about you or information about your eligibility for credit or credit worthiness.
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 will collect:
- Identification information;
- Financial Information including
- Income (from all sources including government benefits) and current employment status and recent history;
- Assets;
- Expenses;
- Debts.
Consumer credit liability information about the Consumer credit accounts you have applied for or hold whether with us or some other credit provider including:
-
- type of account;
- when and whether it was opened and, if applicable, closed;
- if a credit account, then the maximum amount of credit approved;
- other specific terms and conditions of the account.
Repayment history information of Consumer credit accounts you now hold or which you have held with us or with some other credit provider including:
-
- Whether or not payment was made in any month it was due;
- Any late payments;
- When the payment was ultimately paid.
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 Reporting Body.
- 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 and which, after giving you notice as required by the Australian Privacy Laws, we may disclose to a Credit Reporting Body or which has already been disclosed to a Credit Reporting Body by another credit provider.
- Payment Information which discloses that you have made an overdue 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 Consumer 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 Consumer credit which we or some other credit provider has provided to you to the effect that you:
- fraudulently obtained Consumer credit;
- fraudulently evaded payments under a Consumer 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 Consumer credit obligations.
- Credit worthiness or credit eligibility information which we derive from the above information to produce tools, such as risk ratings and credit scores, to assist us to assess your application for Consumer credit from us. Such credit worthiness or credit eligibility information may be based on your Financial Information but will not include it in a recognizable form.
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 Consumer credit; and
- We collect credit information about you from Credit Reporting Bodies; and
- We may collect credit information about you from other credit providers.
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.
How do we disclose your credit information?
In order to obtain credit information about you from Credit Reporting Bodies 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.
We may also disclose your credit information to other credit providers on production of your written consent and at our discretion informed by our obligations under Australian Privacy Law.
This includes all the credit information described above with the exception of your Financial Information. It does, however, particularly include
- Credit worthiness or credit eligibility information;
- Information about your credit application;
- Repayment information;
- Default information; and
- Serious Credit Infringement information.
The Credit Reporting Body/Bodies to which we may disclose your credit information are:
Illion (Australia)
Website: www.creditcheck.illion.com.au
Equifax Pty Ltd
Website: www.equifax.com.au
We refer you to the Privacy Policy of Illion and Equifax.
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 Consumer 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 Consumer credit contract;
- assist you if we consider you may be at risk of default;
- participate in the Credit Reporting system and provide information to the Credit Reporting Body/Bodies as described above;
- a prospective purchaser or other entity involved in the sale, transfer or restructure of our business assets;
- 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;
- Identify you as required by the Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorism Financing Act;
- meet our legal requirements including those under Australian Privacy Law and other laws to relevant authorities;
- assist other credit providers 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.
In addition to the above, we may disclose your information to the following entities and service providers who assist in the course of operating our business, although in doing so, only when required and in line with the Australian Privacy Law:
* government, law enforcement or statutory or regulatory bodies;
* external dispute resolution schemes;
* legal and professional advisers;
* debt management companies;
* debt collections agencies, your guarantors;
* information technology, administration and business management services: and
* printing and mail service delivery providers.
Where your information is disclosed to our service providers referenced above, these service providers have entered into contractual arrangements with us and in doing so they are subject to strict privacy rules and must also comply with Australian Privacy laws.
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.
Whether we supply your credit information to overseas recipients
We will not 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.
We shall not provide credit information and credit worthiness or credit eligibility information to overseas entities except as permitted by Australian Privacy Law.
How you may access your credit information held by us
You may access your credit information held by use 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.
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 describe 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 of our making our decision and, in any case, 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.
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.
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.
Thank you for reading our privacy policies.