Privacy Policy

Who Are We?

'We', 'us' and 'our' refer to Esdale Sinclair & Associates QLD Pty Ltd ABN 78 138 553 483 Australian Credit Licence 389733.

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 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 for 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 the 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.

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 information. Credit information is information that is used to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance and may include any finance that you have outstanding, your repayment history and any defaults. Usually, credit information is exchanged between credit providers. 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. 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. 

Why We Collect Your Personal Information

We collect personal information to assess your application for finance and manage that finance. We may also collect your personal information for 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. The types of organisations to which we are likely to disclose information about you include other mortgage intermediaries, lenders, valuers, lenders, mortgage insurers, surveyors, accountants, credit reporting bodies, recoveries firms, debt collectors and lawyers. We may also disclose your personal information to any other organisation that may have or is considering having an interest in your finances or in our business.

How We Collect Personal Information

Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may also collect your personal information from credit reporting bodies, 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 finances, such as third-party suppliers, printing, and
  • postal services, call centres, 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 anybody who represents you, such as finance brokers, lawyers, and accountants
  • To anyone whom you have provided us consent
  • Where we are required to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money or Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006
  • (Cth)
  • To investors, agents or advisers, or any entity that has an interest in our business
  • 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:

  • The person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment or
  • 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.

Credit Information

We may collect the following kinds of credit information and exchange this information with credit reporting bodies and other

entities:

  • Credit liability information is information about your existing finances, including the name of the credit provider. Whether the credit provider holds an Australian Credit Licence, the type of finance, the day the finance is entered into, the terms and conditions of the finance, the maximum amount of finance available, and the day on which the finance was terminated;
  • Repayment history information, which is information about whether you meet your repayments on time
  • Information about the type of finance that you are applying for
  • Default and payment information
  • Court proceedings information

We exchange this credit information to assess your application for finance and manage that finance. This credit 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 information we hold about you. When we obtain credit information about you from a credit reporting body, we may also seek publicly available information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed. We may disclose your credit information to overseas entities that provide support functions to us. You may obtain more information about these entities by contacting us. 

Notifiable Matters

The law requires us to advise you of 'notifiable matters' in relation to how we may use your credit information. You may request to have these notifiable matters (and this privacy policy) provided to you in an alternative form. We exchange your credit information with credit reporting bodies. We use the credit information that we exchange with the credit reporting body to assess your creditworthiness, assess your application for finance and manage your finances. 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. 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 if needed. Please see the heading Access and correction to your personal and credit information below. Sometimes, your credit information will be used by credit reporting bodies for the purposes of 'pre-screening' credit offers at the request of other credit providers. You can contact the credit reporting body at any time to request that your credit information not be used in this way.

You may contact the credit reporting body to advise them that you believe that you may have been 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. 

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 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 at (07) 4922 7221 or by writing to us at PO Box 5226 Red Hill Rockhampton QLD 4701. If direct marketing is done 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 as soon as possible.

Updating 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.

Access and correction to your personal and credit information: We will provide you with access to the personal and credit 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 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 investigate your request properly. There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal or credit 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 or credit information we hold about you. If any of the personal or credit 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 or credit 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 information, we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information. 

Using Government Identifiers

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 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. 

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 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.

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. In this regard, please contact us as follows:

Esdale Sinclair & Associates

PO Box 5226

Red Hill Rockhampton QLD 4701

Telephone: 07 4922 7221

Email: enquiries@esdalesinclair.com.au

We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days. 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

The scheme, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which can be contacted either at www.afca.org.au/make-a-complaint/ or

by telephoning 1800 931 678 or the Privacy Commissioner, which can be contacted either at www.oaic.gov.au or by telephoning 1300 363 992.

Further Information

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

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempting to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as are the law and marketplace practices. As a consequence, we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as needed.