Introduction
The privacy of personal information you provide to us is important. This Privacy Policy governs the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by AustAsia Group Pty Ltd (ACN 069 896 920), AustAsia Finance Brokers Pty Ltd (ACN 066 154 783), AustAsia Financial Planning Pty Ltd (ACN 080 213 378), AustAsia Accounting Services (ACN 074 748 182), AustAsia Legal Pty Ltd (ACN 123 160 476), AustAsia Real Estate Pty Ltd (ACN 008 954 283), Master Settlements (Licence Number: TC390) their related entities, subsidiaries, employees and the credit representative or financial adviser that will assist you (“we”, “us” or “the Group”). This Privacy Policy sets out how we intend to respect your rights to privacy, in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
How we collect 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, whether true or not. Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We collect personal information from you through our Client Services Team, through our credit representatives (brokers) and financial advisers, when interviewing you, from our website and from competitions and promotions to which you choose to respond.
The personal information we collect
The type of personal information we collect may 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 a loan or seeking financial planning advice, we may also collect the number and ages of your dependants, the length of time you have lived at your current address, your employment details, proof of income and expenses and other financial details. If you apply for an insurance product through us, we may also collect your health information. We will collect health information from you only with your consent.
If you are seeking financial planning advice from us, we will make it clear what information we need to obtain from you for the purpose of providing financial planning advice, as well as any personal information that may be provided by you at your option. You may choose not to provide any optional information requested by us, however, this may restrict our ability to assist you. If you give us personal information about another person, you represent that you are authorised to do so and agree that you have obtained consent from that person for us to use and disclose their personal information. They may access any personal information we hold about them.
How we use your personal information
We use your personal information to assist us with:
- Assess your application for credit, manage that credit application and any future applications for credit;
- Assist you to do your tax return;
- Review your tax position;
- Assist with tax planning;
- Assist you in business if required;
- Make recommendations to you in respect of risk insurance products, such as insurance for your life, permanent disability, income replacement, and critical illness cover;
- Make recommendations to you in respect of investment products and services, such as managed investment funds and investor directed portfolio services (IDPS);
- Make recommendations to you in respect of superannuation products, including self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF);
- Make recommendations to you in respect of investments in direct equities and stock exchange listed products;
- Review your wills, estate planning, enduring power of attorney and the enduring power of guardianship;
- Communicate information about products and services to you;
- Meet our internal administrative, marketing, planning, and research requirements; and
- Remarket using cookies to serve advertisements based on users’ prior visits to our website. Users may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page.
We will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information when your personal information is no longer required for one of the above purposes.
Disclosure of your personal information to others
Where possible, we will inform you, at or before the time of collecting your personal information, of the types of organisations to which we intend to disclose your personal information. We may disclose your personal information to our related bodies corporate, credit representatives, financial advisers, panel of approved lenders or financial product suppliers and advisers, service providers and agents that we use in the ordinary operation of our business. For example, if you provide us with personal information to assist us to find you a suitable loan, we may collect personal information about you and disclose it to one of our credit representatives or a member of our lender panel.
We will disclose your personal information only for the purpose/s for which we collected the personal information. 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, if required,
- You have consented to us doing so.
We will disclose your personal information to those third parties only where such disclosure is for the purposes required. We will disclose your personal information when we are required by law to do so. We may use cloud storage to store your personal information that we hold. The parties to which we disclose your personal information may be located in India and other countries.
Direct Marketing
From time to time, we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about our services including but not limited to, loans, Superannuation, Life Insurance, special offers you may find of interest, changes to our organisation, or new products and services being offered by us or any business with which we are associated. We do not sell your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may, at any time, decline to receive such information by contacting us on the details listed below. If direct marketing is by email, you may also use the unsubscribe function included in such emails. We will not charge you for giving effect to your request and we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy your request at the earliest possible opportunity.
Updating your 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 will 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 assist us by informing us if the information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete.
Access to and correction of your personal information
You may request access to any of the personal information we hold about you at any time. In such instances, we will provide you with access to that information. To access your personal information that we hold, use the contact details specified below. We will respond to you within seven days of receiving your request. We may need to contact third parties to properly investigate your request. We will provide you with the outcome of our investigation within 30 days.
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 about you that we hold.
If any of the personal information about you that we hold is incorrect, inaccurate or out-of-date, you may request that we correct the information. 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 third parties as part of our investigation about the accuracy of the personal information about you that we hold. If we refuse to amend personal information, we will provide you with our reasons for not amending the information.
Government Related Identifiers
If 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 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 enquiries about interest rates or current promotional offers.
How we store your personal information
We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or exposure by:
- Installing security and access requirements for all our IT systems, such as passwords, firewalls and virus scanning software;
- Maintaining document storage and destruction policies; and
- Providing your personal information to you only when we are satisfied as to your identity.
We store your personal information in both electronic and paper form.
We require all staff to maintain the confidentiality of customer information. Access to personal information is restricted to employees whose job responsibilities require access to the information. If we no longer need to hold your personal information, it is securely destroyed or de-identified.
Contacting us and providing feedback
If you are not satisfied with how we have managed your personal information, you may contact us as below. We will acknowledge your complaint within seven days of receipt. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days of receipt.
You can make any requests relating to your personal information held by us or any complaints regarding treatment of your privacy by contacting:
AustAsia Group Pty Ltd, including AustAsia Financial Planning, AustAsia Finance Brokers and AustAsia Accounting Services.
Postal Address: PO Box 332, Leederville WA 6903
Phone: (08) 9227 6300
Email: clientservices@ww2.austasiagroup.com
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may amend this Policy from time to time to comply with new laws or codes of practice that may be implemented. We may also change this Policy to include any new products or services that we may provide from time to time.
This Privacy Policy was updated on 13 June 2019.