Privacy Statement and other acknowledgements

Personal information.

We collect personal information from you, and may collect personal information from any co-applicants, to identify you, process your application, provide you with your product(s) or service(s), and manage your product(s) or service(s). We may also use your information to comply with legislative or regulatory requirements in any jurisdiction, prevent fraud, crime or other activity that may cause harm in relation to our products or services and help us run our business.

If you do not provide all the information we request, we may need to reject your application, or we may no longer be able to provide a product or service to you.

We also have relationships with third-party general insurance providers and may disclose or collect your personal information to/from general insurance providers for the purposes of generating a quote or price estimate and if you purchase the product, for administering your product (such as displaying your policy in internet banking or receiving commissions).

We may disclose your personal information, including personal information we already hold about you, to other co-applicants or guarantors in the application.

We may disclose your personal information to an entity which is located outside Australia. Details of the countries where the overseas recipients are likely to be located are in our privacy policy. As a provider of financial services, we have obligations to disclose some personal information to government agencies and regulators in Australia, and in some cases offshore. We are not able to ensure that foreign government agencies or regulators will comply with Australian privacy laws, although they may have their own privacy laws. By using our products or services, you consent to these disclosures. We are required or authorised to collect personal information from you by certain laws. Details of these laws are in our privacy policy.

Our privacy policy is available at stgeorge.com.au/online-services/security-centre/we-protect-you/ or by calling 13 33 30. It covers:

How you can access the personal information we hold about you and ask for it to be corrected;
How you may complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles or a registered privacy code and how we will deal with your complaint; and
How we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in more detail.

We update our privacy policy from time to time.

For our customers located in the European Union.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates the collection, use, disclosure or other processing of personal data under European Union (EU) law. Personal data means any information relating to you from which you are either identified or may be identifiable. The GDPR aims to protect the personal data of individuals located in the EU and harmonise data protection laws across EU Member States.

Our collection, use, disclosure and other processing of your personal data is regulated by the GDPR if:

you interact with our Westpac UK branch;
we offer products or services to you whilst you are located in the EU; or
we monitor your behaviour whilst you are located in the EU (such as through our use of cookies when you interact with us online or for our fraud detection and prevention purposes).

Please refer to our EU Data Protection Policy on our website at westpac.com.au/privacy/eu-data-protection-policy for information about how we manage your personal data under the GDPR.

Credit information.

We may:

Obtain consumer credit information about you from a credit reporting body to enable us to assess your credit worthiness;
Exchange personal information and credit information about you with other credit providers to assess your application and credit worthiness and to notify them of any defaults by you;
Disclose credit information and other personal information held by Westpac Group about you to a guarantor or to a proposed guarantor for the purpose of them considering whether to offer to act as guarantor, as required by the Australian Banking Association’s Banking Code of Practice or otherwise as permitted by law; and
Give or obtain an opinion about your credit worthiness.
If you have made your application or have been introduced to us through a broker or other intermediary, we may exchange credit information and other personal information about you with them. We may also communicate with them directly in relation to your application instead of communicating with you.

To ensure we are meeting our requirements and to allow the most up-to-date information to be considered as part of the application process, we may be required to do any or all of the things listed here on one or more occasions.

The privacy page of our website includes a “Statement of Notifiable Matters”. These are matters you should be aware of in relation to the use and disclosure of your credit information. This statement includes:

Details of the credit reporting bodies to which we are likely to disclose your credit information, the types of credit information we may give them and how this information will be used;
Your rights over your credit information, including how you can access and correct your information and make complaints;
Your rights to direct a credit reporting body to limit the use of your information for direct marketing purposes and what protections are available if you believe you are a victim of fraud; and
Information about our Credit Reporting Policy. You can call us on 13 33 30 or visit us in branch for a hard copy of the Statement of Notifiable Matters.

Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act Requirements.

You state that:

The account(s) will be held in the name of a person;
The account(s) will not be held in trust; and
If you are known by any other name you have already provided your other name(s) to us or you will contact us to provide your other name(s) as part of your application for the account(s).

NOTE: It is an offence under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to:

give false or misleading information;
receive a loan, credit card or deposit account in a false name.

Marketing communications.

We will use your personal information to contact you or send you information about other products and services offered by the Westpac Group or its preferred suppliers. Please call us on 13 33 30 or visit any of our branches if you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us.

Other acknowledgments.

We may confirm the details of the information provided in your application which includes contacting your employer to confirm salary, address or other personal details.
Where you have provided information about another individual, you must make them aware of that fact and the contents of the Privacy Statement.
The application is not an offer or acceptance of credit.
Valuations obtained by us are ours for our own use and we are not obliged to make a copy available to you.
You are not borrowing the funds for the purposes of purchase by a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund.

Foreign tax residents.

We are required under domestic and international laws to collect and report financial and account information relating to individuals and organisations who are, or may be, foreign tax residents. We may ask you whether you or any shareholder, beneficiary, settlor or controlling person are a foreign tax resident from time to time, such as when you open an account with us, or if your circumstances change. If you do not provide this information to us, we may be required to limit the services we provide to you.

Unless you tell us otherwise, by completing any application, you certify that any shareholder, named beneficiary, settlor or controlling person is not a foreign tax resident. You must tell us if you, or any shareholder, named beneficiary, settlor or controlling person is, or becomes, a foreign tax resident (unless an exemption applies, such as for shareholders of listed companies). Where there are no named beneficiaries (e.g. for beneficiaries identified only as a class) you must tell us if a beneficiary is a foreign tax resident immediately when any decision is made to identify and make a distribution to them. You may contact us to provide foreign tax residence information by calling 1300 725 863.

We cannot give tax advice, so please contact your independent tax advisor if you need help finding out whether any person is a foreign tax resident.