This is the Privacy Notice for The Personal Finance Centre Limited. This privacy notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you.
What information do we collect about you?
We collect information about you when you engage us for financial planning/financial advice/mortgage advice and investment management services. This information will relate to your personal and financial circumstances. It may also include special categories of personal data such as data about your health, if this is necessary for the provision of our services. We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete surveys or provide feedback to us.
Why do we need to collect and use your personal data?
The primary legal basis that we intend to use for the processing of your data is for the performance of our contract with you. The information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal data we’d also be unable to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations. Where special category data is required we will obtain your explicit consent in order to collect and process this information.
How will we use the information about you?
We collect information about you in order to provide you with the services for which you engage us.
Our Privacy Promise
We promise to keep your data safe and private, not to sell your data as well as giving you ways to manage and review your marketing choices with us.
How the law protects you
As well as our Privacy Promise, your privacy is protected by law. Data Protection law says that we are allowed to use personal information only if we have proper reason to do so. The law says that we must have one or more of the following reasons;
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, but even then, it must not unfairly go against what is right and best for you.
Where we collect your personal information from
We may collect personal information about you from the following sources;
Who might we share your information with?
In instances where we cannot source a suitable product through our internal panel of lenders, then we may share your details with a carefully selected partner who we feel may be able to assist you. They will review your details and contact you to discuss further by phone, email and SMS.
Our partners include Freedom Finance, Evolution Money, Specialist Money, Norton Finance, Deal Direct, ForestKing Insolvency & ECS Group.
Where third parties are involved in processing your data we will have a contract in place with them to ensure that the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data and that they’ll only act in accordance with our written instructions. Where it’s necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party we will use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in transit.
If you agree, we may also contact you via email, SMS or telephone about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you. In order to deliver our services to you effectively we may send your details to third parties such as those that we engage for professional compliance, accountancy, legal, and credit reference services as well as product and platform providers that we use to arrange financial products for you.
To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money-laundering and other financial crime we may send your details to third party agencies for identity verification purposes
How we use your information to make automated decisions
We use systems to make automated decisions based on the personal information we have about you. This helps us to make sure our decisions are quick, fair, efficient and correct, based on what we know. These automated decisions can affect the products or services we may be able to offer you now or in the future or the price/interest rate we can make available to you. These automated decisions are a result of lender credit scoring systems . It uses past data to assess how you are likely to act while making repayments on any money you borrow.
Credit scoring uses three sources of data collected from an application form, credit reference agencies and data we may already hold. It gives an overall assessment based on this and lenders use this to help make a responsible lending decision that is fair and informed.
Credit Reference Agencies
We carry out credit and identity checks when you apply for a product or service and may use credit reference agencies to help us with this. We share your personal information with Credit Reference Agencies and they will give us information about you. The data we can exchange can include;
This data is used to;
When we ask Credit Reference Agencies about you, they will note it on your credit file. Other lenders may see this and we may see credit searches from other lenders. If you apply for a product with someone else, we will link your records with theirs. We will do the same if you tell us you have a spouse, partner or civil partner. You should tell them about this before you apply for a product or service as it is important that they know your records will be linked together and that credit searches may be made against them.
Marketing
We may use your personal information to tell you about relevant products and offers. This is what we refer to as “marketing.” The personal information we have for you is made up of what you tell us and data we collect from third parties we work with. We can only use your personal information to send you “marketing messages” if we have either your consent or a legitimate interest. That is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information. It must not unfairly go against what is right and best for you.
You can ask us to stop sending you “marketing messages” by contacting us at any time. We may ask you to confirm or update your choices when we speak with you in the future and if you change your mind you can update your choices at any time by contacting us.
How long do we keep hold of your information?
In principle, your personal data shouldn’t be held for longer than is required under the terms of our contract for services with you. However, we are subject to regulatory requirements to retain data for specified minimum periods. We also reserve the right to retain data for longer than this due to the possibility that it may be required to defend a future claim against us. In any case, we will not retain your personal data for longer than 7 years after our contractual agreement has been terminated. You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We will comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above.
How can I access the information you hold about me?
You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information please email or write to us using the contact details noted below.
When your personal data is processed by automated means you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.
What if you want us to stop using your personal information?
You have the right to object to our use of your personal information, or to ask us to delete, remove or stop using your personal information if there is no need for us to keep it. This is known as your “right to object” and “right to erasure” or the “right to be forgotten.” There may be legal or other reasons why we need to keep or use your data but please tell us if you think that we should not be using it. You can ask us to restrict the use of your personal information if;
If you want to object to the way we use your data or ask us to delete it or restrict how we use it, please contact us.
How to withdraw your consent
You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please contact us if you want to do so. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. If this is so, we will tell you.
Cookies
We use cookies to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.
For further information visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/
You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above website tells you how to remove cookies from your browser. However in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.
Other websites
Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.
What can you do if you are unhappy with how your personal data is processed?
If you are unhappy with how your personal data is processed, please contact us and we will endeavour to resolve your issue by following our complaints procedure, details of which are highlighted below. You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority for data protection. In the UK this is:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Address: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate)
Changes to our privacy policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will inform you of any changes when they occur. This Privacy Notice was last updated on 16/03/2018.
How to contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you by writing to us at our usual business address or by email at info@thepersonalfinancecentre.com
We are committed to treating customers fairly and performing to high professional standards. We aim to be fair and reasonable in all our dealings with customers ensuring an appropriate degree of protection for them.
We hope that you will be happy with your dealings with us. If you do, however, have a complaint about any aspect of the service you have received, we will deal with it politely and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. We take complaints seriously to try and ensure that you are satisfied with your experience of our service.
Also, if you have any suggestions or comments, please tell us, as we welcome feedback that will help improve matters.
Please let us know about things as soon as possible – the sooner we know, the sooner we can take action.
Our complaints procedure has been designed in accordance with the requirements of the financial and legal authorities. You are entitled to be treated fairly and we will respect your confidentiality and investigate your complaint fully.
We keep accurate and comprehensive records of complaints received as well as any actions taken to improve services as a consequence of complaints.
Customer satisfaction and delivering good customer outcomes are central to the business of The Personal Finance Centre and we take all customer complaints very seriously, managing complaints to the regulatory standards of the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) and complying with Treating Customers Fairly guidelines.
Where we become aware of customer concerns or unease, we aim to handling the matter as quickly as possible through our appropriate, transparent and effective complaints procedure which gives priority to resolving
customer dissatisfactions as efficiently, clearly and fairly as possible, within a reasonable timescale.
If we are unable to resolve any dissatisfaction you may have straight away, you can contact us to complain via the following methods:
Telephone: 01482 560807
Email: compliance@thepersonalfinancecentre.com
In Writing: Send correspondence to our registered address which is as follows:
FAO The Compliance Team
The Personal Finance Centre,
Unit 2, Estuary Business Park,
Henry Boot Way,
Hull, HU4 7DY.
Please tell us what happened and how you want things putting right.
On receipt of your complaint, we will carry out the following process:
Please note that before the Ombudsman service can look into your complaint, they will expect you to have first got in touch with us and given us the chance to put matter right.
Please also bear in mind that if your complaint involves information from third parties, some delays could be beyond our control. We will, however, pursue information on a regular basis.
In the event that we receive a complaint that is not about us, or our services, and assuming that we can identify the firm to whom the complaint should be addressed, we will carry out the following action:
Please feel free to contact us, Call us now to speak to an adviser or alternatively please email us and we will call you back.
