Privacy Notice

1.  Introduction

Equifinance Ltd of 3rd Floor, East One Building, 22 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LP (referred to as “Equifinance”, “We” “our” or “us”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This notice sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you (‘you’ and ‘your’ refers to all our current and past customers including potential customers who apply for our products and services and any third parties authorised by them to deal with us on their behalf), or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

We have put in place a number of measures to ensure that any personal data we obtain from you is processed and maintained in accordance with accepted principles of good information handling and in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulations tailored by the Data Protection Act 2018, collectively referred to as the “Data Protection Legislation”.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation, the data controller is Equifinance Limited. If you have any question about our privacy policy or wish to exercise any of your rights set out further below, you can contact the Equifinance Data Protection Officer at the address above or by telephone on 0208 045 1375 or email privacy@equifinance.co.uk

2.  Information we may collect from you

For processing of personal data to be lawful, we are required to tell you the lawful basis on which we will process your personal data. Equifinance considers the processing of personal data to be necessary for the performance of a contract we have with an individual or to take steps to enter into a contract with an individual.

Equifinance also has a legitimate interest in promoting its products or services to its clients where we believe these may be of interest to you. Further details are given below in the marketing section of this notice.

We will collect personal and financial information about you when you provide us with data and information over the telephone, when you send us documents, when you provide us application forms or digital documents on our website or from any third parties (including your Broker), when you apply for a loan or request other products or services from us and when we access information held by credit reference agencies (CRAs) about you. This will include your name, address, date of birth, employment and financial history.

In certain circumstances it may be necessary to process an individual’s sensitive personal data, such as matters relating to health, where it has or could have an impact upon the individual’s ability to manage their loan with Equifinance.

We will only do this if we have the individual’s specific consent and to enable us to administer the loan in the most appropriate way.

3.  Uses of your personal information

We may use information held about you in the following ways:

To verify your identity and credit standing with credit reference agencies and to enable us to consider and process your application for a loan. Please note that credit reference agencies may place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.

  • To verify your identity and credit standing with CRAs and to enable us to consider and process  your application for a loan. Please note that CRAs may place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.
  •  To assess your credit history and confirm your employment details.
  • To detect, prevent and investigate actual and potential fraud and related activities.
  • To collect unpaid loans and debt that may be owed by you to us.
  • To contact you in connection with your enquiry.
  • To help us administer and service your account with us.
  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.

The administration of your account includes collecting regular direct debit payments from your designated bank account where they have been set up. We use ‘GoCardless’ to process your direct debit payments. More information on how GoCardless processes your personal data and your data protection rights, including your right to object, is available at https://gocardless.com/legal/privacy/

4.  Marketing

We may also use your personal data to develop, manage and market products and services to meet your needs and to provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you. Through our website or return of documents to us, we receive your consent to contact you by SMS, post, email or telephone and also if you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us.We will not sell or otherwise share your personal data with third parties, other than as stated within this privacy notice.

You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing at any time by writing to us at Equifinance Ltd, 3rd Floor, East One Building, 22 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LP or by telephone on 0208 045 1375 or email customerservices@equifinance.co.uk

5.  Cookies

Equifinance Limited may have collected information from you via our website where we use cookies and similar tools across all our websites to improve their performance and enhance your user experience. 

Cookies are small text files which a website may put on your computer or mobile device when you first visit a site or page. The cookie will help the website, or another website, to recognise your device the next time you visit. Web beacons or other similar files can also do the same thing. We use the term “cookies” to refer to all files that collect information in this way.          

Cookies serve many functions.  For example, some are required for the operation of our website, allowing you to log into secure areas.  They can help us to remember your username and preferences, analyse how well our website is performing, or even allow us to recommend content that we believe will be most relevant to you. Most cookies won’t collect information that identifies you and will instead collect more general information such as how users arrive at and use our website, or a user’s general location.

We also use the cookies to record which parts of our website you are using and send this information, in an anonymised form, to Google Analytics. The analysis of this information by Google Analytics helps us improve the way our website works for all users but does not allow Google Analytics to identify particular users. An overview of the work of Google Analytics is available at http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html

The information that the cookie collects is considered to be your personal information, and we will record your consent to collect this information the first time you open the website.

By ticking ‘consent’, you permit us to collect the information about your use of the website which you may usually modify on your browser setting to change consent or decline cookies automatically. However, doing this may affect your ability to access some parts of our or other websites. If you do not tick ‘consent’ we will not collect this information. A cookie does not give access to your computer or any information about you, other than information about your use of our website. Other organisations may also collect information on your use of our website but we have no control over how they do this, nor how they process your personal information. Our website may include links to third-party websites, which might also collect your information. Equifinance does not control these third-party websites and so we are not responsible for how they protect the privacy of your personal information.

Our website also logs the IP address of your computer for administrative and security purposes and compiles anonymised statistical information about the use of our website.

6.   Disclosure of your information

We may disclose your personal information to the following:

  • Our insurers, auditors, solicitors, professional advisors, sub-contractors, 3rd party processors
  • or any person providing services to Equifinance Limited or who are involved in the loan application, who are required to treat your personal details as confidential.
  • Any funders of Equifinance Limited or any proposed or actual third party involved in any matter relating to the administration of your loan with us who are required to keep the details in line with Data Protection Legislation. Any person where such disclosure is necessary to enable us to ensure that your obligations under any agreement or mortgage with us is being complied with and to ensure that any security given in connection with any loan is not at risk.
  • Regulatory authority, body or agency, law enforcement in response to requests which Equifinance Limited are legally required to comply or in the defence of legal claims.   

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties from time to time for the following reasons:

  • In the event that there is (or is to be) any change in ownership of our business or assets, we may disclose your personal data to the prospective or new owners so that they may continue to operate our business electively and continue to provide services to our customers. This may include new shareholders or any organisation that may take an assignment or transfer of any agreements we have entered into with our customers.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data to comply with any legal obligation to exchange information with other third parties for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

7.  Credit reference agencies (CRAs)

We will check our own records and we will also contact CRAs to get information on your credit behaviour with other organisations. This will help us make the best possible assessment of your overall situation before we decide to make a loan to you. By submitting your application to us, you authorise us to make an enquiry to CRAs regarding your credit behaviour. We may also make periodic credit searches at CRAs to meet our on-going regulatory responsibilities.

We may collect the following information from you for these purposes:

  • Information on your personal accounts
  • Financial information on an associate’s personal accounts if there are any financial links with you
  • Business accounts if you are a director or partner in a small business
  • Data held by fraud prevention agencies on you and your business if you have one
  • Information obtained from public records including the electoral roll

We may disclose information about your transactions with us (including any defaults) to CRAs who may keep a record of that information. If you provide us with false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this and may also pass this information to financial and other organisations involved in fraud protection to protect us, them and our respective customers from theft and fraud.
Further information on how the CRAs use and store personal data they receive about you can be found at: https://www.equifax.co.uk/crain.html          

8.  Fraud Prevention Agencies

Before we provide financing to you, we undertake checks for the purposes of preventing fraud and money laundering, and to verify your identity. These checks require us to process personal data about you.

The personal data you have provided, we have collected from you, or we have received from third parties will be used to prevent fraud and money laundering, and to verify your identity. Details of the personal information that will be processed include, for example: name, address, date of birth, contact details, financial information, employment details, device identifiers including IP address and vehicle details.

We and fraud prevention agencies may also enable law enforcement agencies to access and use your personal data to detect, investigate and prevent crime.

We process your personal data on the basis that we have a legitimate interest in preventing fraud and money laundering, and to verify identity, in order to protect our business and to comply with laws that apply to us. Such processing is also a contractual requirement for the financing you have requested.

Fraud prevention agencies can hold your personal data for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to six years.

If we, or a fraud prevention agency, determine that you pose a fraud or money laundering risk, we may refuse to provide the financing you have requested, or we may stop providing existing services to you.

A record of any fraud or money laundering risk will be retained by the fraud prevention agencies, and may result in others refusing to provide services, financing or employment to you. If you have any questions about this, please contact us on the details above.

For further information on how your data is used and transferred, along with your rights can be found at: https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn or contact Equifinance to get a full notice.

9. Retention of your personal information

The length of time we retain your information will depend on the purpose for which the information was provided. In general, however:

  • We will keep the information that is necessary to enable us to manage your account and provide you with a service that you have requested for the duration for which we are required to keep it for legal and regulatory purposes.
  • We will keep records of any transactions you enter into with Equifinance Limited for a minimum period of six years. This is to allow us to respond to any complaints or disputes that may arise during that period.
  • We will keep other information about you if it is necessary for us to do so to comply with the law.

Please be aware that CRAs and fraud prevention agencies who we have transferred your data to in accordance with this notice, may also retain your information for a minimum period of six years.

10. Data security

At Equifinance Ltd we are committed to safeguarding the privacy of your personal and financial information we collect and process. We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

11. Telephone calls

When you telephone us we may record and retain your call for training and monitoring purposes.

12. Your rights

12.1  Access to information

The Data Protection Legislation gives you the right to access information held about you called a Subject Access Request. You can contact the Equifinance Data Protection Officer with the details provided at the beginning of this section.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it

We will provide your requested information to you normally free of charge and within 30 days of receiving your request, subject to receiving any evidence of identify reasonably requested.

We may be entitled to extend this to two months if the request is particularly complex or involves numerous requests. We may also be permitted to charge a reasonable fee if a request is deemed to be manifestly unfounded or excessive.

You may also contact the CRAs that we use within the UK to obtain further information about what information they hold about you. Please contact us and we will provide you with their details.

12.2  Right to rectification

You are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

12.3  Right to erasure

In certain circumstances you may have the right to have your personal data erased, for example, if you believe it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was originally collected. If we are unable to accede to your request for a valid reason, we will tell you why.

12.4  Right to restrict processing

You may have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your data for a certain period of time. For example, if you contest the accuracy of your personal data you can ask us to restrict processing until the accuracy of the data has been verified.

12.5  Right to object

You have the right to object at any time to your personal data being processed for marketing purposes.

12.6  Right to lodge a complaint

If you have any questions about how Equifinance Limited processes your personal information, or wish to make a complaint about this, please email or write to the Data Protection Officer with the contact details at the beginning of this section.

If you are not satisfied with the handling of any complaint, you can also write to the Information Commissioner’s Office, and details can be found on their website at: www.ico.org.uk

12.7  Right to data portability

You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances. This right is different from the right of access as you are not able to obtain through the data portability right, all of the personal information that you can obtain through the right of access.

12.8  Right to withdraw consent 

In the limited circumstances where you have been asked for and provided your explicit consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific future processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Equifinance Data Protection Officer via the contact details above. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

13.Changes to our Privacy Notice

This Notice will be changed from time to time.

We will endeavour to notify you if important changes affect the personal data that we hold.

Any changes we may make to our Privacy Notice will be updated on our website. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.