Privacy - Using personal information

Using intermediary personal information

By registering as an intermediary you will be consenting to the use of your personal information and other information available to manage your business relationship with us, for fraud prevention and detection, legal and regulatory compliance and market research.

Additional personal information (home address and date of birth) will only be used to remove duplicate records from our database and to link you to the mortgage club / network to which you belong. These personal details will be treated as confidential.

For more details see Other Disclosures of intermediary and customer personal information we may make.

Using Customer personal information

By registering a case with us an intermediary will be consenting on behalf of the customer to the use of their personal information, including any sensitive personal information, as explained below.

Make sure you read about how we make general use of customer personal information together with the specific information for your type of application.

If you do not want your information to be used in this way, please tell us.

Choose from the following to find more details of:

How we make general use of personal information
How we use personal information for a Mortgage Application
How we use personal information for an Offset Saving Account
How we use personal information for insurance products
How we use personal information for credit reference agencies
How we use personal information for fraud prevention agencies
Other disclosures of intermediary and customer personal information we may make
Use of your personal information for general business purposes
Any sensitive data we may collect and use

General use of customer personal information

We will assume that we may use any of the contact details that you have given us to communicate with you.
We will keep your personal information only for as long as is necessary for us to administer the account/products you have in line with regulatory requirements. If you do not open an account with us, we will only keep your details for twelve months from the last date of any contact.
If you are making an enquiry or application on behalf of another person, they must have authorised you to act on their behalf, to give us their personal information, to authorise a credit search if necessary and to consent to our use of their personal information as described.
If we use an automated system to make a decision about you, such as credit scoring, we will tell you (or your mortgage intermediary) if the application is rejected and give you the opportunity to discuss the matter with us. The decision will be reviewed and may be changed, if appropriate.
We may disclose details of the progress of your application, including whether or not it has been granted and how you conduct your account, to your broker, independent financial adviser, professional adviser or other intermediary if they sent it to us.
We may disclose personal information to our external auditors and regulatory bodies, associate companies’ agents, and service providers. Check the other disclosures section for more details.
We may occasionally need to transfer personal information to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) which may not have adequate Data Protection laws in place. This will only be done under a contract which includes appropriate safeguards for the security and confidentiality of your personal information, with your consent or where permitted by the Data Protection Act.
If we sell or transfer all or part of our business, we may disclose or transfer our customer records as part of the proposed/actual sale or transfer. However, we will only do so under a contract, which protects the confidentiality and security of personal information.

Other Disclosures of intermediary and customer personal information

We may disclose personal information to
(i) our external auditors and regulatory bodies and (ii) associate companies (including our parent), agents and service providers, a full list cannot be given, since actual disclosures will depend on circumstances. However, examples include:
- Banking Code Standards Board, Financial Ombudsman Service, Financial Services Authority
- Intermediaries or agents who send us applications
- Solicitors and valuers acting for the Company
- Debt counsellors, debt recovery agents
- Department for Work and Pensions, authorised agents
- Letting agents
- Mailing houses, printers, marketing agents and market research agencies
- Contractors and consultants who help develop and test computer systems
- Providers of information technology services
- Data Processors who act on our behalf.

General Business Purposes

General business purposes for which we process personal information include:

verifying the identity of an applicant,
updating customer records
handling customer queries and complaints
statistical analysis, including analysis of customer preferences and assessment of product suitability
devising new products
computer system testing.

Sensitive Data

Sensitive Personal Data is defined in the Data Protection Act as information relating to:

racial and ethnic origin
political opinions
religious or similar beliefs
trade union membership
physical or mental health
sexual life
commission or alleged commission of offences and related proceedings and sentences.

We only use sensitive information where necessary. We may hold details such as title, gender and country of origin that may infer such things as religion, sex life and race, but we will always treat the information with care.

Sources

We may obtain information from the following sources, where appropriate:

the applicant and their representative e.g. financial adviser, solicitor, employer, landlord or lender
industry databases e.g. credit reference, fraud prevention, insurance
public directories e.g. postal address file, telephone directory
our representatives and agents e.g. staff, debt recovery agents
other organisations to assist in the prevention and detection of crime.