We utilise credit providers and their lending products through the services of our aggregator ‘National Finance Connections Pty Ltd t/as Viking Aggregation (ACN 661 296 457) ACL 543046 (“Viking”). Any reference to “we/us/our” is a reference to Viking and the Licensee.

We collect, hold, use and exchange personal and credit information about you for these stated purposes. The Privacy Policy also contains information on how you can complain about a breach of the privacy laws, how you can access or request to correct your personal and credit information that we hold about you and how to have that information amended. Our Privacy Policy is available on request.

What is personal information?
Personal information is information or an opinion about an identifiable or reasonably identifiable person. The personal information we will collect, and hold will include your name, date of birth, gender, telephone number, address, email, employment details and any other information we may need to identify you.

What is credit information?
Credit information is personal information that relates to credit that a person has applied for or has been provided. The credit information that we will collect from you may include your records of credit that you have applied for (including the name of the credit provider, the type of credit and the amount of credit), default information or any other information that has a bearing on your credit worthiness used to determine your eligibility for credit. Credit information also includes credit reporting information supplied to us by a credit reporting body and any information that we derive from it.

Disclosures
We will collect, hold, disclose and use your personal and credit information to:

a. assess and verify your identity and financial situation.
b. assess your credit application, or your suitability as a guarantor to a credit application.
c. provide such information to a guarantor or related applicant.
d. exchange your information with a credit reporting body.
e. disclose your information to credit providers to assess your credit application, or your suitability as a guarantor to a credit application and to arrange credit.
f. an insurer to assess your suitability for, or arrange insurance you wish to obtain.
g. Obtain from, and disclose to, third parties such as your employer, landlord, real estate agent, lawyer, accountant and other professional advisers, lending institution and guarantor, who are deemed as reasonably necessary to arrange finance and/or insurance.
h. other organisations that provide us with services, such as contractors, agents, printers, mail houses, lawyers, document custodians, securitises, compliance service providers and computer systems consultants or providers, so they can perform those services for us.
i. any organisation that may wish to acquire, or has acquired, an interest in our business or any rights under your contract with us.
j. issuers of identification document via the use of third-party systems.
k. debt collection agencies.
l. external dispute resolution service.
m. law enforcement, government and regulatory bodies.
n. anyone who refers you to us.
o. our related bodies corporate; and
p. refer you to other organisations, service providers or business partners or obtain referrals from them to you.

We require the information we collect from you to amongst other things, your credit application, source a suitable credit provider and to manage the application process. We may not be able to proceed with credit assistance if you do not provide the information sought, or without the ability to collect, hold, disclose and use your personal and credit information.

We may collect and hold Health Information if we are assisting customers with an insurance product.

We do not use or share that information for any purpose other than acquiring the product on behalf of the customer.

Identity & financial situation verification
We are required by the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) to collect and use personal and credit information from you in order to identify you. We are also required by the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) to collect credit information and personal information about you and take reasonable steps to verify this, including your financial situation. This verification may include enquiring via a credit reporting body.

We may disclose your name, residential address and date of birth to a CRB or other organisation (including the document issuer or official records holder) to verify your identity. That organisation will use this information to give us an assessment/report of whether the information we have matches information held by the organisation, and that may involve use of third-party systems and services. If we use these methods and are unable to verify your identity in this way, we will let you know. We may also use information about your Australian Passport, state or territory driver licence, Medicare card, citizenship certificate, birth certificate and any other identification documents to match those details with the relevant registries using third party systems and to record the results of that matching. This information may be transmitted to New Zealand.

If you do not consent to us disclosing your information in this way, we will verify your identity in another way, which may involve requiring you to provide various supporting identification documents (either original or certified copies)

Credit reporting bodies
We may exchange personal and credit information with a credit reporting body as detailed below:

a. disclosure of details such as name, date of birth and address to obtain a credit report on the applicant or guarantor in our capacity as an access seeker in the credit assistance process.
b. use any information provided by a credit reporting body to assist us in conducting a preliminary assessment of a proposed credit application and its suitability to the applicant; and
c. request a credit reporting body to provide us with an assessment of whether information provided by the applicant or guarantor matches that in the credit report to verify the identity of applicant and/or guarantor.

Our current Credit Reporting Bodies are:

-Equifax and you can contact them on phone 1300 762 207 or email subscriberassist.au@equifax.com during opening hours of Mon-Fri 8.30am to 6.00pm Eastern Standard Time. You can obtain their Privacy Policy from their website at www.equifax.com.au.

-Illion and you can contact them on phone 1300 734 806 or email PAC.austral@illion.com.au during opening hours of Mon-Fri 8.30am to 6.00pm Eastern Standard Time. You can obtain their Privacy Policy from their website at www.illion.com.au.

-Creditor Watch and you can contact them on phone 1300 501 312 or email privacy@creditorwatch.com.au during opening hours of Mon-Fri 8.30am to 6.00pm Eastern Standard Time. You can obtain their Privacy Policy from their website at https://creditorwatch.com.au/privacy/

Credit providers
We may submit a credit application to credit providers listed in our ‘Credit Provider Schedule’. If a credit provider holds pertinent credit eligibility information, the credit provider must share this information with us, yourself or someone you have authorised to act on your behalf. Credit providers may also engage directly with, and disclose information about you to, a credit reporting body and you can ascertain the details on this and how they handle personal and credit information via their websites which are listed in our ‘Credit Provider Schedule’. If your credit application proceeds with a credit provider you may be asked again for your consent to collect, store and use your personal and credit information by this credit provider.

Disclosing your information overseas
Some of the parties with which we exchange your personal information, including our service providers and other third parties, may be located outside Australia including India, Singapore and the United States of America.

We may also need to send your information overseas in order to process transactions you have instructed us to make, such as international money transfers. The countries to which we disclose your information will depend on the transaction details.

Your rights
You have the right to ask:

a. that we provide you with the personal and credit information we hold about you.
b. that we correct any personal and credit information we hold about you that is shown to be incorrect.
c. for copies of our Privacy Policy and this document.
d. the credit reporting body does not use your personal information for assessment purposes or direct marketing; and
e. the credit reporting body provides you with a copy of information it holds about you.

Subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles, we will generally give you access to your personal information. However, there may be exclusions that apply that permit us to not provide you with access in some circumstances. If access is denied, we will provide you with the reason why unless, having regard to the grounds for refusal, it would be unreasonable for us to do so. Where we do grant access to your information, we may charge you a fee for accessing your personal information.

You can also contact us to request that we correct personal information that we hold about you. If we are satisfied that the personal information is inaccurate, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading then we will take reasonable steps to correct that information.

To access and/or seek correction of your personal or credit information we hold, or make a complaint about privacy, you can contact our office on 1300 366 992 or email info@financedirect.com.au

Marketing
We would like to contact you from time to time with marketing information about the products and services we provide. You can opt-out of receiving direct marketing communication from us at any time, by clicking the unsubscribe link or by replying to an email or text message with unsubscribe or stop.

Electronic communication
If you provide us with an email address or mobile phone number, you consent for us to use these details to send you, or make available to you, notices and relevant documents, including those from a credit provider or insurer. You are therefore responsible for maintaining appropriate software, hardware and associated processes to receive, access, review, print and save copies of such documents.

This consent applies to all types of communication that is permitted by law to occur electronically. Therefore, paper (hard copy) documents may not be provided to you, unless we are obliged to by law. You must regularly check advised electronic communication mediums for communication from us. If your details change, you must promptly notify us.

If you wish to withdraw your consent to electronic communication, please notify us on phone number on phone number, email or via registered post at PO Box 4098, Invermay TAS 7248.

Complaints and Contact Us
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, or a complaint about the way we have dealt with your personal information or think that we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, you may make a complaint by contacting our Privacy Officer:

Xeon Finance Group Pty Ltd T/as Financedirect.com.au
1300 366 992
info@financedirect.com.au
PO Box 4098, Invermay TAS 7248

We will acknowledge and respond to complaints within a reasonable time.

If you are dissatisfied with the response of our complaints officer you may make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Commissioner which can be contacted at www.oaic.gov.au or 1300 363 992 or our External Dispute Resolution Scheme, AFCA which can be contacted on 1800 931 678.