Privacy Policy

Disclaimer

Use of the information and data contained on this World Wide Web site on these pages is at your sole risk. All information is general in nature. If you rely on the information on this site, you are responsible for ensuring by independent verification its accuracy or completeness.

If you use automatic language translation services in connection with this Site, you do so at your own risk. The information and data on this site are subject to change without notice. FMA may revise this Disclaimer at any time by updating this posting. FMA, its agents, instrumentalities, officers and employees:

make no representations, express or implied, as to the accuracy of the information and data contained on this site;
make no representations, express or implied, as to the accuracy or usefulness of any translation of the information on this site or any linked site into another language;
accept no liability for any use of the said information and data or reliance placed on it (including translated information and data);
make no representations, either expressed or implied, as to the suitability of the said information and data for any particular purpose;
make no warranties that the said information and data is free of infection by computer viruses or other contamination;
do not sponsor, endorse or necessarily approve of any material on sites linked from or to this site;
do not make any warranties or representations regarding the quality, accuracy, merchantability or fitness for purpose of any material on sites linked from or to this site;
do not make any warranties or representations that material on other web sites to which this site is linked does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any person anywhere in the world; and
do not authorise the infringement of any intellectual property rights contained in material in other sites by linking this Site to those other sites.

Who are we?

‘We’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refer to FINANCE MUTUAL AUSTRALIA PTY LTD ABN 41746206148, Australian Credit Licence 387284 and our related businesses.

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.

Our commitment to protect your privacy

We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our policy commitment in respect of personal information we collect and hold about you and what we do with that information.

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.

By giving us your personal information, you are consenting to our use of that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you about changes to this Privacy Policy by posting an updated version on our website.

We abide by this policy, bound by the Privacy Act (1988).

Using government identifiers

When we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we do not use or disclose this information other than as required by law. We will never use a government identifier to identify you.

Collection of 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 kinds of personal information we may collect and hold about you include:

Your name, date of birth, address, account details, occupation, and any other information we may need to identify you.
Financial information, including proof of earnings and expenses to assess your situation and provide mortgage advice.
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 to assess your situation and provide mortgage advice.
If you apply for any insurance product through us, we may also collect your health information to assess your application. We will only collect health information from you with your consent.
When you browse this website, our Internet Service Provider makes a record of your visit. Certain information about your visit onto our website is logged for statistical purposes. We do not attempt to identify you or to monitor or chart your on-line activities from this information. The information is solely used for website analysis and improvement, and to increase the relevance and usefulness of our products and services to our customers.

Why we collect your personal information

We collect and hold personal information for the purposes of:

assessing your application for finance, arranging for finance to be provided to you and managing that finance;
direct marketing about other products, services and/or offers, and managing our relationship with you;
establishing a customer loyalty program;
meeting legal & regulatory purposes;
market research and statistical studies;
improving our products and services. We will use de-identified information in these circumstances wherever possible;
resolving complaints; and
any other purpose related to the above.

If you do not provide your personal information to us, we may not be able to provide these services to you.

How do we collect and hold your personal information?

Where reasonable and practical we will collect your personal information directly from you, through application forms. If for a valid reason we are unable to do so, we may collect your personal information from another organisation. We may also collect your personal information from credit reporting bodies, finance brokers, financial institutions and other people such as accountants and lawyers.

We hold all personal information in hard copy documents as electronic data, or in our cloud-based software or systems.

Use and disclosure of your personal information

We will generally only use your information for the primary purpose for which it was collected, or a purpose related to the primary purpose. We will not sell your personal information to any third parties.

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 providing, 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.

Personal information disclosed to third parties will be dealt with in accordance with that entity’s privacy policy. Please advise us if you do not wish for your information to be disclosed.

We do not disclose your personal information to overseas entities. 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.

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 being information about your existing finance which includes 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; and
court proceedings information.

We exchange this credit information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing 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 from a credit reporting body about you, we may also seek publicly available information and information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed.

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 on 8216 4111 or by writing to us at:

Level 5, 333 King William St, Adelaide, SA 5000.

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.

Access and correction to your personal information

Please advise us of any changes to personal information as soon as possible.

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 will respond to your request for access to your information within a reasonable time after you make the request and if access is granted, access will be provided within 30 days from your request.

We may charge a fee for our costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you. This fee may be reduced or increased to correctly reflect the actual costs of providing access to information, depending on the complexity of your request.

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.

There may be situations where we will refuse to provide you with access to your personal information or refuse to update your information, for example, if granting access would be unlawful.

An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access or refuse to update the personal information, we hold about you.

We may need to consult with other entities as part of our investigation.

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 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.

Without identification, all information is general in nature.

Links

Our website may contain links to a number of other websites that are included on the basis of containing content relating to our business and related areas, or to sites containing general information for the personal interest of the user. When a user has clicked on a link to another site, they leave our site and are no longer protected by this Privacy Policy.

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. We will also take reasonable steps to protect any personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We aim to achieve this through:

imposing confidentiality requirements on our employees;
implementing policies in relation to document storage security;
implementing security measures to govern access to our systems;
only providing access to information once proper identification has been given;
controlling access to our premises; and
implementing website protection measures.

By law, we may be required to hold certain information about you for a specific period of time, even after you are no longer our customer. However, after that time you can be assured, we will destroy your information thoroughly and safely or permanently de-identify it.

Cookies

In addition to the above, our website collects information from website users through “cookies”. A “cookie” is a piece of information that an Internet website sends to your browser when you access information at that site. Cookies indicate to a website that you have visited it before, and they can be used to record what parts of a website your computer is visiting. Cookies do not identify individual users, although they do allow identification of the type of browser used and the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

There are two types of cookies: ‘persistent’ and ‘session-based’. Persistent cookies track a visitor’s journey through the issuing website.

They are stored on your computer and allow the website provider to see which pages and information are of most interest to those browsing the site. This type of cookie does not contain personal information; only a log of your movement through the website.

Session-based cookies are short-lived, existing only for the actual time you are logged on. These cookies ensure heightened security for you, by authenticating and identifying your registration for the secure areas of the site without the need for you to constantly re-enter your information. They expire when you close your web browser.

Most browsers can be configured to refuse cookies. You may also delete cookies from your hard drive. However, doing so may hinder your access to areas of our site and others.

Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, you may contact our complaints officer using the following information:

Phone: (08) 8216 4111
Email: mail@financemutual.com.au
Mail: PO Box 6277 Halifax Street
ADELAIDE SA 5000

We will acknowledge your complaint after it has been made aware to us. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint after we have assessed it and come to a decision.

External Dispute Resolution

If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, please contact:

Australian Finance Complaints Authority Limited (AFCA)
GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
Ph: 1800 931 678
www.afca.org.au
info@afca.org.au

We are constantly reviewing all our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and marketplace practices.
Therefore, we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as the need arises.

You may request this privacy policy in an alternative form.

This Privacy Policy was last updated in January 2024.