HSBC Australia Privacy Policy

• Interact with us
• Enquire, apply for, or use our products and services
• Visit our websites or use our digital services
• When you authorise third parties to act on your behalf
• From other HSBC group companies

Your personal information is collected so we can provide you with access to our products and services or comply with our legal obligations. The types of personal information we collect will depend upon what services we provide to you.

• HSBC group companies or business divisions
• third parties who provide services to us, or who you have consented to us sharing your personal information with. This includes accountants, IT service providers, financial professionals, legal representatives, agents, mortgage brokers, financial advisors, a person with a power of attorney, legal guardians, guarantors or other security providers.
• organisations that verify information you disclose to us such as your employers, medical professionals and other banks and financial institutions that you may have products and services with.
• credit reporting bodies and credit providers to determine your eligibility for credit (Please refer to Section F – Credit Reporting below)
• other third parties we work with or parties we need to share with for the purpose of acting on your instructions
• any bodies or partnerships formed between law enforcement and the financial sector or authorities, such as legal, regulatory, law enforcement, government and tax authorities in Australia or overseas or anyone acting for them
• any person who you hold a joint account with, people who can give instructions for you and anyone who may give security for your loans
• any third party who we may transfer our business or assets to
• partners and providers of reward, co-branding or loyalty programs, charities or non-profit organisations
• social media advertising partners for advertising purposes who may use your information to send our adverts to you
• your information may be anonymised and shared with other parties not listed above.

We may transfer and store your personal information overseas. This includes with other HSBC entities, service providers or third parties who store data or operate outside Australia. We may also share your personal information with law enforcement agencies to comply with laws. The locations we operate in can be found here - Our markets: Where we do business | HSBC Holdings plc.

When you contact a HSBC entity outside of Australia, your personal information is handled in accordance with the location of the HSBC branch or office. If you wish to view the privacy policy for that location, you can access this via the local country HSBC website.

• United Kingdom
• Hong Kong
• China
• India
• New Zealand
• The Philippines
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• Taiwan
• Sri Lanka
• Indonesia
• Vietnam
• Japan
• Israel
• Canada
• Poland
• Ireland
• Turkey
• United Arab Emirates
• United States
• Canada

If you provide personal information to us about another person (such as a joint account holder, trustee, beneficiary or guarantor) you must ensure this person knows you have disclosed their personal information. You can make them aware that we will collect and process their personal information based on this Privacy Policy. You also need to provide them with a copy of the Privacy Policy.

If you provide sensitive information to us about another person, you must first obtain their consent to sharing it with us, along with their consent to us collecting and handling their sensitive information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We take steps to ensure your personal information and credit related information are protected by physical, organisational, electronic and technical measures, such as encryption and security protocols.

Our third-party service providers that receive your information are required to comply with strict measures to protect your personal information and apply appropriate measures for the use and transfer of personal information.

Personal information collected may be retained and used by us for a reasonable period in accordance with our data retention policy. We keep your banking information for a period of seven years from when our relationship with you ends, or when the last transaction was made. This allows us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, or use it where we need to for our legitimate purposes such as managing your account and dealing with any disputes or concerns that may arise. We may need to keep your personal information for longer where we need the information to comply with regulatory or legal requirements, help detect or prevent fraud and financial crimes or answer requests from regulators. If we don't need to keep information for this length of time, we may destroy, delete, de-identify or anonymise it sooner.

We may use your personal information to send you information about products, services and offers provided by us, or our business, reward and loyalty partners. We'll only do this where you have provided your consent.

If you do not wish to receive marketing from us you can opt-out at any time by:

• Updating your preferences via the Mobile Banking App or Online Banking
• Click the "unsubscribe" links in our emails or reply “STOP” to the SMS
• Calling us on 1300 301 168

Credit reporting bodies: Credit reporting bodies also offer a service to credit providers like HSBC, to send direct marketing material about credit services to individuals, called “credit pre-screening”. You have the right to request the credit reporting bodies not use your information for this purpose. To opt-out of credit pre-screening, contact the credit reporting body, using the contact details in Section F – Credit Reporting below.

We collect credit information about you when you apply or use our credit products like a credit card or mortgage, provide a guarantee for a loan, or under a credit related insurance policy.

We collect credit information directly from you, your representative or from third parties, including credit reporting bodies. Credit reporting bodies may include your personal information and credit information in reports they provide us when you hold accounts with other credit providers. These reports are used to assist us in assessing your creditworthiness.

We may collect the following information about you when you apply or hold a credit product with us:

• identity information such as your name, gender, date of birth, residential and postal addresses and your drivers licence details
• your employment details (past and current employer), including salary information and payslips
• income tax assessment notices, tax returns and financial statements
• consumer credit information such as the accounts you hold with other lenders, the credit amount, contract terms, start and end date of the contract
• your repayment history, including missed payments
• any financial hardship arrangements you have with us or other credit providers
• your credit history and credit eligibility
• a credit score that is assigned to you by a credit reporting body as an assessment of your credit worthiness and default risk and alerts in relation to accounts which may pose a significant risk of default
• details of any court judgments, bankruptcy, personal insolvency, directorships in your name
• serious credit infringements such as attempted or actual fraud by you in connection with a credit agreement
• information from other credit providers about you or another person.

We use your credit information for a range of purposes to enable you access our credit products, including:

• to assess your application for credit and credit worthiness­
• obtain credit eligibility information about you from a credit reporting body to enable us to assess your creditworthiness
• manage your credit product and account administration, such as issuing new cards, authorising transactions or decreasing your credit limit
• to detect, combat and prevent fraud
• determine whether you are a risk of experiencing financial difficulty and what arrangements are available to help support you
• conduct collection activities when you miss a repayment, identify your address information when you have moved and engage debt collection agencies to contact you
• help us decide whether we should introduce new or make changes to our existing product features, rewards and incentives, and fees and charges
• to respond to complaints or requests from law enforcement bodies, agencies or external dispute resolutions schemes
• partner with mortgage brokers, insurers and other third parties to offer you our products and services
• notify any third parties you authorise, or your guarantor about your account status.
• share your financial information, such as payslips, with our service who analyses the information contained in them and then gives us a report to assist us in making an assessment on whether you can afford your loan
• derive information from your credit reporting information we receive from credit reporting bodies.

If you apply for credit or offer to act as a guarantor, we may collect or share your information with a credit reporting body. This information is used to determine your eligibility for credit.

When we request information about you from a credit reporting body (a credit enquiry), will share some of your personal or credit inform­ation with them. Your consent is not required for us to share that information with a credit reporting body. We may need your consent for the credit reporting body to disclose information to us.

The credit reporting body will record the credit enquiry and it will show on your credit report. The credit enquiry may be disclosed to other credit providers or used in the calculation of your credit score by the credit reporting body. When a credit enquiry is recorded on your credit report, it can affect your credit score in different ways. This depends on factors like the type of credit you're applying for, how many other credit checks you've had recently, and other details in your report. An enquiry is more likely to lower your credit score if you make a lot of credit applications in a short time.

Our sharing of information about your missed payments and defaults with credit reporting bodies may impact your credit worthiness and your ability to obtain credit in the future. We may share the following information with credit reporting bodies:

• repayment history, including missed payments
• defaults on your consumer credit contract
• financial hardship arrangements
• serious credit infringements
• fraud events

We may also disclose this information as well as a copy of your credit report and your loan application to the relevant guarantor for your loan.

We disclose your credit information to the following credit reporting bodies. You can get a free copy of your credit report and information about their policies on management of credit information by contacting them using the details provided below:

Equifax

Phone: 138 332

Email: customerserviceAU@equifax.com

Post: GPO Box 964 North Sydney NSW 2059

Web: Products | Equifax Personal

Illion

Phone: 13 23 33

Email: pacaustral@illion.com.au

Post: PO Box 7405 St Kilda Road Melbourne VIC 3004

Web: Illion Credit Check

Experian

Phone: 1300 783 684

Email: creditreport@au.experian.com

Post: GPO Box 1969 North Sydney NSW 2060

Web: Consumer Services | Experian Australia

These credit reporting bodies may use your personal information to assess your credit worthiness and provide this information to other licensed credit providers, debt collection agencies and other third party companies to help assess your credit application.

We may ask a credit reporting body to verify your identity by providing us with an assessment of whether the information we hold about you matches their records. The credit reporting body may use this information and information held by other third parties for the purpose of preparing and providing this assessment to us. Where we use and disclose your information to verify your identity, it will not be recorded as an enquiry on your credit file or impact your credit score.

You may be subject to an Information Match Request in relation to information held by an Official Record Holder. A corresponding Information Match Result may be provided to us (via a credit reporting body) to verify your identity.

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) contains certain exemptions in relation to certain acts undertaken in relation to employee records and related bodies corporate. Where appropriate we make use of relevant exemptions in the Act.

It is important we hold accurate credit information about you. To access or correct your credit information please contact us via any of the options in Section G – Your Privacy Rights below. You can also contact us to make an enquiry or complaint about the collection and handling of your credit information.

If you reasonably believe that you are a victim of fraud or are likely to be a victim of fraud, you can request a credit reporting body not to use or disclose your credit information. ASIC’s Money Smart website also contains useful information on credit reporting and can be found at www.moneysmart.gov.au/borrowing-and-credit/borrowing-basics/credit-reports.

You can request access to or correction of your personal information or credit information that we hold. We may be unable to provide you with access to some of your personal information due to privacy laws or other legal obligations. Where we can, we will explain why we cannot disclose your information to you.

For personal information relating to Consumer Data right , please refer to the Consumer Data Right section below and the link to our CDR Policy on information about your rights to access and correct your CDR data.