This policy explains how we will manage and protect your personal information (including your credit-related information), and applies to the personal information of our customers and any other person we may deal with as part of our business.
This policy is effective as of 21 October 2021. Sometimes we will update this policy – you can always find the most upto-date version on our website at www.greater.com.au/legal/privacy-policy, or request a copy free of charge by visiting any of our branches or by contacting us on 13 13 86.
This policy covers Greater Bank Limited ABN 88 087 651 956 and Greater Investments Services Pty Ltd ABN 78 050 287 324. References to “Greater Bank”, “our”, “us” or “we” refer to Greater Bank Limited ABN 88 087 651 956 and Greater Investment Services Pty Ltd ABN 78 050 287 324.
Personal information is information or an opinion about an individual who is identified or who can be reasonably identified (for example, your name and date of birth). It includes credit-related information and sensitive information.
Credit-related information is a type of personal information. It includes:
(a) “credit information”, which is personal information that has a bearing on credit that has been provided to you or that you have applied for, including credit for personal, domestic or household purposes and in connection with a business (such as your identification details, information about your account, the type and amount of credit, and your repayment history information, such as whether you have made or missed a payment on your credit facility);
(b) “credit eligibility information”, which is information related primarily to your credit-related dealings with other credit providers and includes credit reporting information disclosed by credit reporting bodies to us; and
(c) “CP derived information”, which is personal information that is derived from credit reporting information about you disclosed to us by a credit reporting body, that has any bearing on your credit worthiness and is used, has been used or could be used in establishing your eligibility for consumer credit, such as our internal credit score.
Sensitive information is another type of personal information. This is information which is sensitive in nature (for example, your racial or ethnic origin, your political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association or union, and health information). We only collect sensitive information from you if it is necessary in the circumstances and you have consented to that collection.
The types of personal information we may collect and hold about you include:
In limited circumstances, we may collect sensitive information about you (for example, about your health when you make an application for hardship or when you apply for employment with us). If we need this information, we will ask for your permission (unless the law does not require us to do so).
Most of your personal information (including credit-related information) will be collected directly from you. For example, we will collect your personal information:
We may also collect your personal information when you use our products and services (for example, when you use your account with us to make transactions or repayments).
In some circumstances, we may need to obtain personal information (including credit-related information) about you from others. For example, we may collect information about you from:
Where you apply for employment with us, we may collect personal information about you from your application and in the course of our recruitment process. In these circumstances, we may also need to collect information about you from third parties, including current and previous employers, nominated referees, educational institutions and when undertaking background checks.
We collect, hold, use and share your personal information (including credit-related information) so that we can provide products and services to you, and manage or administer our business and our relationship with you.
We may collect, hold, use and share your personal information so we can:
Where you apply for employment with us, we may collect, hold, use and share your personal information so that we can assess your application and determine your suitability for a position. This includes verifying your identity, confirming your employment and income details, qualifications, education, training and professional memberships and health information you may provide and arranging for criminal record checks to be conducted.
We may also use or share your information for other reasons where the law allows or requires us to do so (for example, a court, tribunal or external dispute resolution ruling or rule), or for any other purpose you have consented to.
Can we use your personal information for marketing products and services?
From time to time, we may use your personal information to tell you about products or services (including those of third parties) that we think you might be interested in.
We will do this unless you ask us not to. We may contact you by mail, email, telephone, SMS, or any other online, digital or electronic means. We might also provide your details to other organisations for marketing purposes.
You can let us know at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing information by:
If you do not provide us with your personal information (including credit-related information), we may be unable to:
We may freeze your access to a particular product or service, and cancel that product or service, if you do not provide us with information that we reasonably request and need to provide you with that product or service.
If you have a question of a general nature, you can choose to do this anonymously or by using a pseudonym – however, we might not always be able to interact with you in this way as there are laws that require us to know who we’re dealing with.
Where permitted under the Privacy Act, we may share your personal information (including credit-related information) with third parties, including:
If you have applied for employment with us, we may share your personal details with third parties, including your current or previous employers, nominated referees, organizations that conduct criminal history and background checks and identity verification service providers.
In some circumstances, we may require your consent before being able to share your personal information.
Sending personal information outside of Australia
We may need to share some of your personal information (including credit-related information) with organisations overseas (or organisations that have overseas or cloud-based data access or storage). The countries in which these overseas recipients are likely to be located include New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Canada and Germany.
We will only share personal information with overseas recipients for the purposes set out in this policy.
When you apply to us for credit or choose to be a guarantor, we may obtain a credit report about you from a credit reporting body. A credit report tells us about your credit history and other credit-related information collected, which we use to assess your creditworthiness. We may use your credit report to assess applications for consumer or commercial credit, assess the suitability of a proposed guarantor for a credit contract, assist in the avoidance of a credit default and the collection of overdue payments and assist with the internal management of credit and pre-screening.
The law limits what information we can give to credit reporting bodies, what they can give to us, and how we can use credit reports.
We may collect and share credit-related information with credit reporting bodies about your credit accounts. The information we can collect and share with credit reporting bodies includes:
Credit reporting bodies include this information in their reports to assist other credit providers to assess your credit worthiness.
We can also ask credit reporting bodies to give us your overall credit score, and may use credit-related information from credit reporting bodies together with other information to arrive at our own scoring of your ability to manage credit.
The credit reporting bodies we may deal with are:
You can obtain their privacy policies on their websites.
Direct marketing using your credit-related information
From time to time, we may ask credit reporting bodies to use your credit-related information to pre-screen you for direct marketing purposes (for example, to determine your eligibility for certain credit products). You can ask a credit reporting body not to use or give your credit related information in this way. To do so just contact the credit reporting body using the contact details noted on their websites above.
What if you think you are a victim of fraud?
If you believe on reasonable grounds that you have been or are likely to be a victim of fraud (including identity fraud), you can ask a credit reporting body not to use or give your credit-related information to anyone for a 21 day period (unless the use or disclosure is required by law). This is known as the initial ban period. It’s a good idea to make requests to each credit reporting body, as you may have a credit report with more than one credit reporting body.
At least 5 business days before the end of the initial ban period, the credit reporting body will get in touch to inform you that you can extend the ban period and explain what information you need to provide to support your allegation of fraud. If you do not make a request to extend the ban period, or the credit reporting body does not believe on reasonable grounds that you have been or are likely to be a victim of fraud, the ban period will end at the end of the ban period.
If you make a request to extend the ban period, and the credit reporting body believes on reasonable grounds that you have or are likely to be a victim of fraud, the credit reporting body must extend the ban period by a period that it considers reasonable in the circumstances and provide you with notice of the extension. The same process will apply for each subsequent ban period.
We or third party service providers on our behalf may store your personal information (including credit-related information) in hard copy, digital or electronic records. The security of your personal information is important, and we take reasonable steps to ensure that all your personal information is protected from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. Some of the ways we do this are by:
Any personal information that we transmit through our website and internet banking site is encrypted. However, like all internet communications, we cannot guarantee that information transmitted online is secure. To help protect your privacy, you should ensure that you keep your passwords and personal identification numbers safe, in accordance with our Banking General Terms and Conditions. You must contact us as soon as practicable if your passwords and personal identification numbers are subject to unauthorised access, disclosure or loss.
If we no longer require your personal information (for example, we no longer need your information for business or legal reasons), we will take reasonable steps to ensure that this personal information is de-identified or destroyed.
We handle any personal information collected on our website (www.greater.com.au) in accordance with our website’s Terms and Conditions (located at www.greater.com.au).
You have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You can do this by contacting us using the details set out in section 12. Before giving you access, we’ll need to confirm your identity. In some cases, you’ll need to fill out a ”Request for Access or Correction of Personal Information” form.
In most cases, we will be able to deal with your request immediately. If we aren’t able to give you the information within three business days we will, within that three business day period, acknowledge your request and contact you to provide you with an update.
When you request access to your credit-related information that we have received from credit reporting bodies, we will provide you with access to the information within 30 days. We’ll also tell you that you should check what information those credit reporting bodies hold about you (in order to ensure that you have access to the most up-to-date information).
We don’t charge you for asking us for your personal information. However, we may charge you a fee to cover our costs of finding and putting together the material if we give you access – but we’ll let you know how much it is likely to be in advance.
In some cases, we may refuse access to certain personal information (including credit-related information). For example, we might refuse access to information that is commercially sensitive, or would unreasonably impact on someone else’s privacy. If we do this, we’ll explain our decision to you in writing and provide you with information about how you can complain about the refusal. You can contact our Privacy Officer (see contact details set out in section 12) if you have any further concerns.
We’ll try to ensure that the personal information we have about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you think that the information we hold about you may be incorrect (including if your information has changed and needs to be updated), you have the right to ask us to correct or update the information. You can do this by contacting us using the details set out in section 12.
If you’re concerned that we have given incorrect personal information to others, you can ask us to let them know about this correction – we’ll let you know in writing if we are unable to help.If the incorrect information was given to us by a credit reporting body (or based on that information), we may need to check with the credit reporting body or the credit provider. We’ll aim to help you correct your information within 30 days – however, if we can’t help you within that timeframe, we’ll ask you for extra time and will explain why it’s taking longer.
If we don’t think the personal information we have about you is incorrect, we’ll explain why we think this in writing and provide you with information about how you can complain.
We will notify you of the outcome of a request to correct credit-related information within 5 business days of making our decision.
We’re committed to doing the right thing by our customers. If you have any questions or concerns with regard to our handling of your personal information, let us know and we’ll try to fix it.
How can you make a complaint?
If you’re concerned with our handling of your personal information (including credit-related information) or believe we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, Division 3 of Part IIIA of the Privacy Act or the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014, you can make a complaint and we’ll look in to it. You can make a complaint by using the details set out in section 12.
How will we deal with your complaint?
Once a complaint is lodged, we’ll get in touch within seven days and let you know how we’ll deal with your complaint. If we are unable to resolve your complaint within 30 days, we’ll let you know why and, with your written agreement, work out a new timeframe with you.
What happens if you’re still not satisfied?
If you’re not satisfied with our decision or how we have managed your issue or complaint, there are free and independent external dispute resolution services that are available.
Australian Financial Complaints Authority Mail: |
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner Online: www.oaic.gov.au Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au Phone: 1300 363 992 Mail: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 |
You can contact us in any of the following ways:
In person: |
At any of our branches |
By mail: |
Privacy Office
Greater Bank Limited PO Box 173, Hamilton NSW 2303 |
By phone: |
13 13 86 (Monday – Friday 8am – 6pm and Saturdays 8am – 1pm) |
By email: |
customervoice@greater.com.au |