Home - Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us. This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information.

Introduction

This is the Privacy Policy of Formation Finance (ACN 660 033 241) (Formation Finance, we, us, our). Formation Finance is committed to ensuring the privacy of your personal information and is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (AU Privacy Act). Our handling of credit information is also subject to the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Cth). Any reference in our documentation to a Formation Finance Privacy Policy and/or Formation Finance Privacy Statement is a reference to this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy is relevant to your dealings with Formation Finance and to your use of our sites and sub‑domains (including www.formationfinance.com.au) (each a Site). This Privacy Policy sets out how we manage your personal information and, if applicable, your personal credit information. Our Sites are owned and operated by Formation Finance, and is used by Formation Finance to facilitate the provision of our business loan products and related services.

This Privacy Policy details how we collect, handle and deal with personal information (including credit information) that we collect about individuals. In this Privacy Policy, “personal information” has the meaning defined in the applicable Privacy Act, and includes any information about an identifiable individual. If you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy, or would like a copy of this Privacy Policy, you may contact our Privacy Officer in the manner described below, under the heading “Access and correction”.

Collection of personal information

The personal information that we collect about an individual will usually depend upon the products or services that are being provided, or that may be provided. That product or service may be provided to you or to another person connected to you. The information we may collect about you, where you are an individual, may include some or all of the following:

• Your name, address, date of birth and contact details
• Your business name
• Your e-mail address
• Your tax file number
• Your Director Identification Number (DIN), if you are a company director
• Your unique identifiers, such as your user name and internet protocol address
• Information from personal identification documents.
• Information required for identity verification purposes.
• Biometric information, such as photographs or facial images used for identity verification purposes
• Details about your financial situation, which may include information about your assets, expenses and any debts you may have (including by the collection of bank statements, credit report information and payments history)
• In some circumstances (for example, in the event that you require financial hardship assistance), we may require you to provide information and supporting documents regarding your financial situation, relevant health or medical information and any other information to help us manage our relationship with you
• Details of any security you have given to us or another person
• Information about your business, including its size and business type
• Details of specified transactions with which you are involved

We may also process consumer credit-related personal information about a customer to develop a credit rating or score, which assists us in our assessment of a customer’s credit worthiness. From time to time, we may reach out to you to request additional or updated information, for example, where you wish to take out a new loan or to vary an existing loan, or where we otherwise need such information to better allow us to provide our products and services.

We may use automated systems, including credit scoring algorithms and other decision-support tools, to assist in evaluating credit applications and assessing creditworthiness. These systems consider factors such as credit history, financial information, and business performance indicators. While automated tools assist our assessment process, significant credit decisions are subject to human review.

Where you provide personal information about someone else to us (for example a joint account), you must ensure that they are aware that you are doing this, the contents of this Privacy Policy, and that we will collect and handle their personal information in accordance with this Policy and any other relevant privacy notices. If you are providing us with another person’s sensitive information, you must first obtain their consent to sharing it with us and their consent to us collecting and handling their sensitive information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth)

Before Formation Finance provides a product or service to you, or to a person connected with you, we may be required to collect your personal information in order to comply with our customer identification obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (AMLCTF Act).

The personal information we collect for this purpose typically includes identification information, such as name, residential address and date of birth. In some cases, we may need to collect information about the political activities and opinions of individuals to determine whether they are politically exposed persons for the purposes of the AMLCTF Act. If we ask for this information, and you provide it to us, we will infer your consent to use and disclose the information for this purpose.

In certain circumstances, we may need to clarify and/or update the personal information we previously collected for identity verification purposes, and/or collect further information, including financial information about individuals. Where this is necessary, we will collect the information directly from you and/or from third party sources.

As a part of our verification processes under the applicable AML Act we may need to take copies of your personal identification documents in order to verify your identity in accordance with the requirements of that Act.

We may also disclose your full name, residential address and date of birth to a credit reporting body for the purpose of providing an assessment of whether this identification information matches (wholly or in partly) personal information held by the credit reporting body. The credit reporting body may compare your details with personal information held by the body (being the names, residential address and dates of birth of other individuals) for the purposes of making this assessment.

You have the right to:

• Let us know by email at info@formationfinance.com.au if you do not want us to disclose your personal information to a credit reporting body for this purpose
• Opt for an alternative means of verifying your identity for the purposes of the AML Act

We may use an electronic identity verification solution to verify our customers’ identities as required under the AML/CTF Act, and to undertake a fraud risk assessment. This solution is provided by our service provider, illion Australia Pty Limited and its related companies (Illion). Conducting these checks may, in some cases, require Illion to access third party databases on your behalf. If this is necessary, you authorise Illion to access these databases as your agent for identity verification and fraud assessment purposes.

How we collect personal information

In most instances, we will collect information about you:

• From an application form completed by you or by a person connected to you
• From permitted access to your bank account transaction information via bank statements provided by you or via authorised access to your internet banking.
• From information provided to us by you or by a person seeking finance from Formation Finance (including through our Sites).
• From information you otherwise provided to us, or our agents.
• From external data providers.
• From other credit providers and from credit reporting bodies.
• By accessing public databases, such as those maintained by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
• By obtaining other information from third party commercial and business information providers.
• By email request to you.
• By telephone contact with you.

We will normally collect your personal information directly from you, unless it is unreasonable or impractical to do so. For certain types of information about you held by third parties (such as information about you held by a credit reporting agency) we may collect this information from the relevant third party. We may collect information from you electronically from our Website. This information collected through our Website may include internet protocol addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp and clickstream data.

If you provide Formation Finance with personal information about someone else you must make sure that you are authorised to disclose that information to Formation Finance and that, without Formation Finance taking any further steps required by applicable data protection or privacy laws, we may collect, use, store and disclose such information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. You must take reasonable steps to ensure the individual concerned is aware of and/or consents to the various matters detailed in this Privacy Policy, including the fact that their personal information is being collected, the purposes for which that information is being collected, the intended recipients of that information, the individual’s right to obtain access to that information, our identity, and how to contact us.

We will not collect sensitive information about you without your consent except where we are authorised or required to do so by law. Sensitive information includes information about your race, political or religious beliefs, sexual preferences, criminal convictions, membership of professional or trade associations or unions or health information.

Anonymity

Where it is lawful and practicable, you have the option of not identifying yourself or using a pseudonym when dealing with us. However, for credit-related services, we are required by law to verify your identity and therefore cannot offer anonymous dealings for loan applications or account management.

Unsolicited information

If we receive personal information about you that we did not solicit and did not request, we will assess whether we could have collected it under Australian Privacy Principle 3. If we determine we could not have collected it, we will destroy or de-identify the information as soon as practicable, unless doing so would be unlawful or unreasonable.

Government identifiers

We may collect government-related identifiers (such as your tax file number, driver’s licence number, or Director Identification Number) where required for identity verification, regulatory compliance, or tax purposes. We will not use these identifiers as our own identifier for you, nor will we disclose them except where required or permitted by law.

Uses and disclosure of personal information

We will only use or disclose personal information we collect about you:

• For the purpose for which it was collected.
• For related purposes for which you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose the information.
• For promotion or marketing purposes, where we are permitted by law to do so.
• For statistical and research purposes.
• Where you have consented to us using or disclosing the information.
• Where we are required or otherwise permitted to do so by law.

The purposes for which we may use your personal information include to:

• Identify you, conduct appropriate due diligence, or establish your tax status under any Australian or foreign legislation, regulation or treaty or pursuant to an agreement with any tax authority.
• Assess and process your request and application for a financial product or service.
• Assess and process a request for the provision of a financial product or service to a person or entity connected with you.
• Assess your suitability as a guarantor or potential guarantor.
• Operate, maintain, improve and provide a financial product or service to you, or a person or entity connected with you.
• Open and maintain a business loan account for you, or the account of a person or entity connected with you.
• Complete and manage our transactions with you, including by deducting periodic payments due.
• Communicate with you to send confirmations and to send account update notifications.
• Manage our relationship with you, or a person or entity connected with you and respond to customer requests.
• Help us to assess products that may suit your financial needs or the needs of a person or entity connected with you.
• Send marketing communications and notify you of any products that may be of interest to you or a person or entity connected with you.
• Audit and monitor the services we provide to you or a person or entity connected with you.
• Assist us to perform administrative or operational tasks (including risk management, systems development and testing, credit scoring, staff training and customer research).
• Investigate, identify or prevent any actual or suspected fraud or unlawful activity.
• Update the personal information we hold about you or the files of a person or entity connected with you.
• Enable us to meet our obligations under law, including under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) or under Australian taxation laws.
• Post and review your comments on our blog, where you request us to do so.
• Produce data analytics and reports containing anonymised summaries derived from personal information and other information that is not personal information (General Information) that we may then share with business partners. (General Information may include personal information that has been aggregated, anonymized and that will not identify you.)

We may disclose your personal information to:

• Our related companies.
• Our business partners, service providers, subsidiaries and affiliates that are assisting in the review or processing of a credit application with which you are connected, or with the provision of our services, such as by providing data storage and other similar services.
• Our agents, the person who introduced you to us, contractors or other third party service providers, to enable them to provide administrative and other support services to us.
• Credit reporting bodies.
• Other credit providers.
• Other financial institutions in connection with a credit application with which you are connected or in connection with your dealings with us.
• Your authorised agents or your executor, administrator or legal representative.
• Government agencies and regulatory bodies as part of our statutory obligations, or for law enforcement purposes.
• People with or considering acquiring an interest in our business or assets.

While we may use third party service providers to maintain some of our data systems and provide auxiliary services, these entities are authorised to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these types of services to us. We require any person that has access to personal information that we have collected must act in a manner consistent with our obligations under the applicable Privacy Act and with our general privacy standards.

How we hold personal information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is protected from loss, misuse and interference, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. The information we collect about individuals will be stored in electronic files and hosted in Australia or the United States. We use a range of physical and electronic security measures, such as access restrictions, to secure the personal information we hold. We also train our employees to keep our customers’ personal information confidential.

We will retain your personal information for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or for a longer period where we are required or authorised to retain the information under an applicable law. As a general guide, we typically retain personal information for the following periods:

• Loan account records: Seven (7) years after the loan is fully repaid or discharged
• Unsuccessful applications: Two (2) years from the date of the application
• Marketing preferences: Until you withdraw your consent or opt out
• Identification documents: As required by the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth), typically seven (7) years

Data sharing with our business partners

We may share personal information (including credit-related personal information) and business-related information with our business partners with whom you have an existing business relationship, such as the broker, originator or other introducer who referred you to Formation Finance. Our business partners refer your details to us for the purpose of inviting you to apply for a business loan. If you apply for a loan, we will disclose certain personal information (including credit-related personal information) and business-related information to the relevant business partner. The information we disclose to the business partner is collected by us in the course of the application process, and in servicing your loan. Our business partners use this information for the purposes of internal reporting, assessing and improving the customer experience, and for marketing and promotional activities.

Our business partners use this information for the purposes of internal reporting, assessing and improving the customer experience, and for marketing and promotional activities.

The types of information we typically share with the relevant business include:

• The name of your business and contact details
• Whether we approved or declined your loan, the loan amount and term
• Your assets reported, liabilities, and turnover
• Details about failed or late payments

For further information about the information we share with our business partners, please contact us using the contact details on our website.

Data sharing with third parties

We may share information with third parties other than our business partners where you have authorised us to do so or where we are legally required. This includes organisations that can verify information that you have supplied when applying for a product or service, or making a claim, including your employer, to verify your employment status, or banks and financial institutions.

Overseas disclosures

We may disclose your personal information to our business partners, service providers and subsidiaries and affiliates who are located overseas and/or do not carry on business in Australia in order to assist us in delivering our products and services to you, such as providing customer service, processing credit checks or securing data storage and other similar services. Where we do so, we will do so in compliance with applicable laws and take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients handle your personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

As at the date of this Privacy Policy, we may disclose personal information to recipients in the United States of America. If we commence disclosing information to recipients in additional countries, we will update this Privacy Policy accordingly.

Credit Reporting

While we do not provide our customers with consumer credit, we may use a customer’s consumer credit information to assist us in assessing an application for commercial credit, an application for a renewal of commercial credit, or an application to act as guarantor in relation to such credit. To this end, we may disclose personal information to, or collect personal information, from a credit reporting body on each occasion. The credit reporting body to which we disclose the information will include this information in reports that are made available to other credit providers to assist them to assess an individual’s credit worthiness.

The credit reporting bodies from which we collect, and to which we disclose, credit information include Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited and its related companies (Equifax), Illion Australia Pty Ltd and its related companies (Illion), and CreditorWatch Pty Ltd and its related companies (CreditorWatch). For contact details and information as to how these bodies manage credit information, please see their privacy policies and credit reporting policies, available here:

• Equifax: equifax.com.au
• Illion: illion.com.au
• CreditorWatch: creditorwatch.com.au

You can ask these credit reporting bodies not to:

• use or disclose your credit reporting information for a period if you believe on reasonable grounds that you have been, or are likely to be, a victim of fraud; and
• use your credit reporting information for the purposes of pre-screening of direct marketing by a credit provider.

Formation Finance does not use credit related personal information for the purposes of direct marketing our products or services to individuals.

Access and Correction

Formation Finance strives to ensure that all information about you that we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. You may, at any time, request access to personal information (including your personal credit information) that we hold about you. If there is an error (or our information about you is incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date), you can advise us about this matter, and we will, if needed, correct, amend, or add to the information we hold about you. We will endeavour to do this within 20 working days. However, should there be a delay, we will let you know as soon as possible.

We will not charge you a fee for your access request, but may charge you the reasonable cost of processing your request, including so as to allow us to provide you with access to your personal information.

It is your responsibility to let us know if the personal information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

If you would like to request access to the personal information that Formation Finance holds about you, please contact our Privacy Officer as follows:

• Email: info@formationfinance.com.au
• Phone: (03) 9060 7878

Alternatively, you can contact us by postal mail at the contact address listed below.

We will aim to respond to your request within 30 business days. If we can’t meet these timeframes, we will explain why and provide an expected date for the outcome of your request. We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as long as reasonably useful for commercial purposes.

Marketing and Option to Opt Out

By agreeing to the Privacy Policy, Formation Finance may contact you to offer you products and services that may be of interest to you. You may choose to stop receiving our marketing material and telephone solicitations or other forms of contact from Formation Finance by following the unsubscribe instructions included in our emails or by contacting us by email at info@formationfinance.com.au (and including your full name and business mailing email addresses and loan ID number if you have one) or by postal mail to us at the contact information listed below. You may also opt-out from continuing to share any personal information that you have provided on our Sites for public display, such as through contributions to publicly accessible blogs or community forums and testimonials on the Sites. You may do this by contacting us on the email address provided above.

Concerns or Breaches

Formation Finance takes the security of your information very seriously. If you have a complaint about our treatment or our records of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer (using the contact details provided above).

We will aim to resolve your complaint within 30 days (or 21 days for complaints regarding financial hardship or debt collection). If we can’t meet these timeframes, we will explain why and provide an expected date for the outcome of your complaint. We will endeavour to keep you informed of progress.

If we do not adequately answer your concerns, you have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) if you believe we have breached the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles, or the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (or other applicable code). Complaints to the OAIC must be made in writing. Further information about making a complaint to the OAIC can be found at: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by email or by means of a notice on our Sites prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

Additional information relating to use of our Website

Tracking Technologies

Technologies such as cookies, beacons, tags and scripts are used by Formation Finance and our partners (for example, our marketing partners), affiliates, or analytics or service providers, including our live chat, marketing trackers, and survey tool service providers. These technologies are used in analysing trends, administering the Website, tracking users’ movements around the Website and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies for user authentication and analytics. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our Website, but your ability to use some features or areas of our Website may be limited. If you would like to learn more about cookies or how to configure your browser, please visit allaboutcookies.org.

Log Files

As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve services we offer you and to improve marketing, analytics, and Website functionality.

Behavioural Advertising/Re-Targeting

We partner with third parties to display advertising on our Website and manage our advertising on other sites. Our third party partners may use technologies such as cookies to gather information about your activities on this Website and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here. Please note this does not opt you out of being presented with advertisements. You will continue to be presented with generic advertisements.

Security of Information

Formation Finance takes the security of your information very seriously and maintains commercially reasonable security measures to protect the personal information we collect and store from loss, misuse, destruction, or unauthorised access. Our security measures include:

• Industry-standard encryption protocols (TLS 1.2 or higher) for data in transit
• Encrypted storage for sensitive data at rest
• Access controls and authentication requirements for our systems
• Regular security assessments and monitoring
• Staff training on privacy and information security obligations
• Confidentiality agreements with employees and service providers

However, no security measure or modality of data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Although we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

When you enter particular types of Personal Information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information. If you allow Formation Finance to see your banking information online rather than in paper form, it is on a read-only basis. We do not have access to change, edit, or modify bank account information in any way. Formation Finance employees cannot view your banking username and passwords, and we securely store them in separate encrypted areas with our financial services providers.

We may provide your personal information to third parties contracted by us in order to perform data storage and data processing services on our behalf. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that these third parties comply with our instructions and do not use your personal information for any other purpose.

Additional Information – Links to third party sites

Our Website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Formation Finance. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies and practices. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Blog/Forum

Our Website offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us by email at info@formationfinance.com.au or by postal mail at the contact information listed above. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

Testimonials

We display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our Website in addition to other endorsements. With your consent, we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us by email at info@formationfinance.com.au or by postal mail at the contact information listed below.

Social Media Widgets

Our Website includes social media features, such as the Facebook “Like” button. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

Contact Details

Formation Finance
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: (03) 9060 7878