Privacy Policy

This Policy contains vital information about how we manage personal information of our customers and correspondents. It applies to all of the services offered by the following businesses:

Fingroup Australia Pty Ltd T/As Loanie

(we, us, our) in respect of www.loanie.com.au (websites) and the Loanie (head office).

We may change this Policy at any time. If and when this occurs, we will immediately publish it on our websites. Like all Australian businesses, we are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Privacy Principles contained within that act.

Loanie’s commitment to upholding your privacy

At Loanie, we understand the significance of safeguarding your privacy and are committed to upholding it. We place a great emphasis on protecting your personal information. We have developed a Privacy Policy that outlines Fingroup Australia Pty Ltd T/As Loanie’s (ABN 57 670 534 611, ACR 552 018) commitment to protecting the privacy of our customers’ personal information, as well as any other personal information we receive in the course of conducting our business.

We are dedicated to complying with all relevant privacy laws, including the requirements under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and other applicable State laws. We encourage you to take the time to read our Privacy Policy to learn more about how we protect your personal information.

Loanie’s Privacy Policy

Our commitment to protecting personal information is outlined in our Privacy Policy. We take great care in handling customer personal information and other personal information we receive in the conduct of our business. Our Privacy Policy explains the types of personal information we collect, the reasons why we collect it and how we hold, use and disclose it.

Our Privacy Policy applies to our website only. It does not cover websites that we do not operate, such as third-party linked websites. The privacy practices of these websites may differ substantially from ours and their respective owners are responsible for the privacy of the information they collect. If you are referred to a third-party website by us, we are not responsible for the privacy or security of your personal information when it is collected or held by that website. You should review the privacy policy of any other websites you visit before using them. We are not responsible for the content or practices of third-party websites that are linked from our website.

Our Privacy Policy also applies to job applicants. However, we have a separate Staff Privacy Policy for our employees and contractors.

When you use our website or provide us with your personal information, you are agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you sign up for any of our services or products, you are also agreeing to the terms of our Privacy Policy as part of the sign-up process. By agreeing to our Privacy Policy, you are giving us your consent to collect, use, store and disclose your personal information in accordance with the terms outlined in this Policy.

Personal information

The kind of information we collect about you depends on several factors, but will generally include information relevant to the quoting or supply of finance products or services you wish to compare or find further information. When applicable, we will always allow you to deal with us without revealing your name. We may collect personal information in order to provide you with a comparison service or to allow a supplier who participates in our comparison service, or a business partner who assists us in providing our comparison service, to contact you. Without this information, further contact to furnish you with our services is not practicable.

Depending on the service you require, the information we collect may include:

  • your name
  • your address and postcode
  • your date of birth
  • your contact details
  • your gender
  • your insurance history
  • your employment information
  • your marital status and whether you have any dependents
  • proof of identification information (such as driver’s licence, passport details) to verify your identity
  • your bank account details and information about both how you make payments to us and how we make payments to you
  • your social security information
  • your Medicare number
  • details about the risk you want to insure
  • details regarding your financial circumstances (such as existing assets and/or liabilities) and future requirements thereof
  • the current values of any relevant assets you own
  • information sourced from other products and services you use
  • the name of your product provider, credit provider, or specific product details for the products and services you hold and use
  • information about your use of our website, including information provided by you via input forms
  • information about the products and services we or our business partners provide to you
  • Information regarding communications with you, such as emails, SMS, and telephone conversations
  • information about the financial products you have or are interested in having
  • information provided to us by you, such as when completing an application, for verification purposes or as evidence of a complaint
  • information and opinions about you from third parties, such as credit reporting agencies
  • information drawn from the data we hold about you, such as derived demographic information
  • if you apply to work for us, information about your past work and study, references and police background checks

Sensitive information

To begin a comparison or quotation on offered financial products (such as a car loan or home loan), we may also, and only if expressly necessary, collect sensitive information from you. Sensitive information may touch on, but is not limited to, an individual’s:

  • racial or ethnic origin
  • political opinion
  • membership of a political association
  • religious beliefs or affiliations
  • philosophical beliefs
  • membership of a professional or trade association
  • membership of a trade union
  • sexual preferences or practices
  • criminal record
  • health information

Other information

We gather information about our suppliers, business customers and partners, as well as employees of those entities, that is necessary for conducting business with them.

For quality control, training, compliance and verification purposes, we may monitor and record phone calls and other communications between you and us.

When communicating with us, we may gather supplementary details such as your preferred language and communication management preferences.

How we collect and hold personal information

Loanie will only collect personal information that is allowable by law. We collect personal information through multiple avenues. It is Loanie practice to collect personal information directly from you (or from a representative you have authorised) in several instances, such as:

  • directly from you, when you provide it to us
  • when you submit your personal information on our website
  • when you use our products or services, including our website
  • when you communicate with us via email, text, telephone or other social applications, services and websites
  • when you interact with our online content, advertising and website
  • from publicly available sources, including third-party marketing lists
  • from businesses and organisations that you ask to provide us with your information
  • from third parties such as banks, regulators, payment channel providers, credit and financial service providers, energy providers and your family members
  • deriving information about you using technology, such as demographic information
  • if you are a supplier or business customer, or a potential one, as part of our business dealings with you, or if you are an employee of a business which is a supplier or business customer of Savvy
  • when you apply to work for us
  • from background check providers, former employers, referees, and educational institutions if you apply to work for us

If you provide us with personal information about another person (such as a family member), we urge you to forward this privacy policy to inform them of their rights and stipulations.

All partial and fully completed applications will be received by Loanie even if you close the browser window.

Why we collect, use and disclose personal information

We may use and disclose your personal information for various reasons, which include but are not limited to:

  • providing our products and services to you
  • verifying your identity and helping you obtain and use our products and services and those of others
  • evaluating your eligibility for our products and services and those of others
  • referring you to businesses and organizations to which you wish to be referred
  • assisting you in setting up or switching to a third-party product or service
  • determining ways to enhance the delivery of our service to you
  • understanding your needs to provide you with products and services more tailored to your requirements
  • delivering advertising that is pertinent to you and appropriately timed
  • completing transactions with you and processing payments
  • responding to your inquiries and providing customer support
  • helping you set up or switch to another service, such as a car loan financier, upon request
  • creating reports for our management and business partners
  • ensuring your compliance with all relevant laws and contractual obligations to us
  • reviewing your interactions with us, the products and services you use and your potential need for new products and services that may interest you or other customers in the future
  • improving our website and services
  • conducting product, market, consumer and community research
  • compiling demographics and analysing data
  • protecting the security and proper functioning of our websites
  • responding to and resolving complaints
  • complying with legal and regulatory obligations and enforcing agreements
  • investigating or pursuing a legal claim
  • protecting and defending our rights as a business
  • making special offers related to our products and services or those of others
  • contacting you periodically by email or telephone regarding new products, services or offers
  • promoting and marketing our products and the products and services of others
  • ensuring our internal business operations are running smoothly, including fulfilling legal requirements and conducting confidential system maintenance and testing
  • determining your suitability for employment with us
  • conducting appropriate fraud checks and monitoring and detecting possible fraud or breaches of our terms and conditions of service
  • protecting the personal safety of our customers, website users, staff, or the public, including in extreme circumstances
  • as required or authorised by law

If you have used any of our services, you give us permission to contact you for follow-up information or reminders about our services, as well as to provide you with information that we believe may be relevant to you.

Disclosing your information

We ensure that your personal information is only disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected or for secondary purposes as permitted by law. In such cases, we may seek your express consent or your gain it as implied.

Your personal information may be disclosed in the following circumstances:

  • upon your request, we may disclose your personal information to third-party organizations such as financial institutions, financial advisers, service providers, product specialists, brokers, solicitors, or accountants
  • your personal information may be disclosed to our subsidiaries and related bodies corporate
  • we may disclose your personal information to insurance companies
  • in the event of an acquisition or consideration of our assets or business (or part of it), your personal information may be disclosed to the acquiring party
  • we may disclose your personal information in response to a subpoena or other legal document served upon us
  • our consultants, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, service providers, and professional advisors who assist us in operating our business may receive access to your personal information. These may include IT and cloud service providers, payment service providers, companies that provide identification verification services, customer analytics providers, mail house operators, CRM providers, collection services, banks, investigators and third-party organisations that we engage to deal with you on our behalf
  • we may disclose your personal information to government agencies, regulators and law enforcement bodies
  • your personal information may be shared with third-party product or service providers that you accessed through our website in the event of a complaint about their product or service
  • we may disclose your personal information to other organizations when necessary or reasonable for the operation of our business

We may utilise your personal information, such as your email address, to match information about you from other websites. In such cases, we will encrypt your email address to ensure that it cannot identify you in any way when shared with others.

By agreeing to the terms of this Policy, you consent to the disclosure of your personal information as outlined above.

On occasion, we may disclose personal information to a third party with the right to use our logo or brand. While the third party may provide products or services or operate a website or app, they are not affiliated with our own products, services or website. We do not assume any responsibility for the privacy practices of these third-party entities.

We may disclose your personal information to organisations located outside of Australia, including our related bodies corporate, contractors, and payment service providers. These disclosures may be made to organisations located in the United States, the Philippines and India.

While most of the data used and stored by Loanie is hosted in Australia, we may store your personal information on servers in web hosting facilities outside of Australia.

Under the Australian Privacy Principles, we must take reasonable steps based on the circumstances to ensure that any overseas service provider to whom personal information is disclosed does not violate Australian privacy laws (the “Requirement”). By providing us with your personal information, you agree to the disclosure of your information to an overseas provider. Your consent means the Requirement will not apply, and Savvy will not be held accountable under the Privacy Act for any violations of the Act by the overseas provider.

Security and storage of your information

For Loanie, security is the #1 priority. As such, we have established a security governance framework which includes security systems and controls, procedures and internal policies.

We only collect and store data necessary to assist you in finding the best products for your needs. When you access tools which require verification through identification documents, we securely send the information to the designated third party and do not store it.

For information that we do store, we employ industry-standard data encryption and only retain personal information for as long as necessary or required by law. We will not share your data without your explicit consent and take reasonable precautions to prevent misuse, loss and unauthorised access to your personal information.

We continuously monitor and update our website security to minimize the risk of hacking, and access to electronically stored personal information is restricted to authorized staff and contractors only.

While we take all possible precautions, we cannot guarantee the security of electronically provided or stored information. No security framework is fool proof, so we cannot guarantee protection against all security threats, although we make every effort to do so.

Change to our privacy policy

Loanie is committed to continuous improvement and review. We periodically review policy and attempt to keep abreast of market development expectations. Technology updates at a rapid rate, as does the law and marketplace practices. We may change this privacy policy to reflect current trends, legal requirements and technologies.

Accessing and correcting your information

You can request access to your personal information held by Loanie at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details provided below.

We will seek to process your request as quickly as is feasible, typically within 21 days for a straightforward request. However, depending on the nature of the request, it may take longer than 21 days for your request to be actioned. There is no fee for requesting access to your personal information, but you may be charged a fee to cover the reasonable cost of processing your request. If a fee applies, we will inform you before access is provided. There may be instances where we are not required to provide you with access, such as if we are allowed to deny access by law.

If we are unable to grant you access to your personal information, we will provide a written explanation for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to dispute it.

At Loanie, we strive to ensure that the personal information we hold about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date. You must notify us promptly if there are any changes to your personal information. You can also ask us to correct any personal information held by us about you that you believe is incorrect or out of date. We will deal with your request within a reasonable time.

If you wish to update or correct any personal information we hold about you, please contact us via email at info@loanie.com.au. If there is a reason for not making a correction to any personal information, we will provide a written explanation for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to complain about the refusal.

Additionally, we may need to verify your identity when you request access or an update or correction to your personal information.

Opting out of communications

We may contact you using various methods, including via email, SMS and phone calls, to provide you with our newsletters and promotional information. If you have subscribed to our newsletters or provided your email address, we may occasionally send you information that we believe is relevant to your interests. If you do not wish to receive these communications, you may opt-out by:

  • following the link or instructions provided in the communication
  • updating your communication preferences with our Customer Service team
  • adjusting settings on your device, such as privacy or push notification settings

Please note that if you unsubscribe from our marketing communications, we may still send you service-related communications if we are legally allowed to do so.

Cookies and web beacons

Loanie uses cookies (temporary settings and information stored in your browser, set to expire after a certain period) to store information about visitor preferences, record user-specific data on which pages the user access or visit, customize webpage content based on visitor’s browser configuration (mobile vs. desktop, for example) or other unique identifiers that the visitor sends via their browser. We won’t share personal data with any third-party to market their product or service to you unless we have your express permission.

Remarketing

Loanie uses Google AdWords to advertise our services online. Third-party vendors, including Google, serve tailored advertisements (ads) on sites across the internet. Savvy and third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie, embedded on our pages) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to inform, optimize and serve ads based on someone’s past visits to our website.

Complaints

At Loanie, we are dedicated to resolving complaints in a fair, appropriate and timely manner. Our complaint process is simple, allowing you to submit your complaint online, by email, over the phone, or by sending us a letter.

If you have a complaint about our methods or management of personal information, including any decision made regarding a request for access or correction of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer (see below for contact information). Our Privacy Officer will endeavour to resolve any privacy complaints in a timely manner and will return written correspondence regarding the conclusion of any investigation.

You can find out more about how to make a complaint, the information to include and your avenues to escalate if dissatisfied with its handling on our complaints page.

Scams and fraud

Scams and fraudulent activities are becoming increasingly common and pose a significant threat to individuals both within Australia and throughout the world. It is important to be aware of these scams and take measures to protect yourself. Please note that our organisation never engages in cold calls and will never ask for sensitive information, such as bank account details or passwords, via email or phone. If you receive any such calls or emails, please do not provide any information and report the incident to us immediately.

You can find out more about scams and frauds and the action you can take if you believe you’re a victim of one on our scams and fraud page.

Contact information

Privacy Officer

info@loanie.com.au

PO Box 3068, Newmarket 4051