Financeo Pty Ltd (CRN 580781) is a Credit Representative of Connective Credit Services Pty Ltd, Australian Credit Licence 389328. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to Financeo and, where relevant, our aggregator Connective Credit Services Pty Ltd and its related companies ("Connective"). "You" and "your" refer to our clients and prospective clients.

This policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information when you engage us to help you source finance, and sets out your rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the credit reporting provisions of that Act.

What we collect and why

When you ask us to assist, you agree that we can collect, use and exchange your consumer and/or commercial credit and personal information for the purposes below, consistent with Australia's privacy and credit reporting laws. We collect information about you to:

• Source consumer credit for personal, household, domestic or residential investment purposes, or commercial credit for business purposes, for you or a company of which you are a director.
• Support a guarantor application you provide.
• Assess your credit or guarantor application, source a suitable credit provider and any required insurances, and manage the application process.

If you don't provide the information we ask for, we may be unable to process your application or may be limited in the other services we can offer.

The personal information we collect may include your name, address and contact details, and other information about your qualifications, employment history and financial position. It may include sensitive information, such as health information, and anything you tell us about a vulnerability you may have.

How we use and disclose your information

We may, as appropriate:

• Use your information to assess your consumer or commercial credit and/or guarantee application, source finance and insurances you require, and as the law authorises or requires.
• Disclose your identification information to a consumer or commercial credit reporting body ("CRB"), where we hold your consent, and use any information a CRB provides to assist us to preliminarily assess your application.
• Disclose to, and obtain from, any prospective credit provider or insurer, information about you that is reasonably necessary to obtain the finance and insurances you require.
• Provide your information, including your credit report, to one or more credit providers so they can assess your application, or your suitability as a guarantor, and provide information about you to a guarantor or prospective guarantor.
• Disclose your information, to the extent permitted by law, to organisations that provide us with services — such as contractors, agents, printers, mail houses, lawyers, document custodians, securitisers and computer systems providers — so they can perform those services for us. Some of these may be located overseas.
• Disclose your information to any organisation that may wish to acquire, or has acquired, an interest in our business or any rights under your contract with us.
• Disclose your information to our advisers, aggregators, licensees and other financial intermediaries, and to credit providers, to apply for finance on your behalf.

Automated tools and AI

We may use artificial intelligence, machine learning tools and other automated systems to assist in providing our services — for example, extracting data from bank statements, summarising documents, and matching your information against lender policies. This is always subject to human oversight.

Your personal and credit information may be processed by AI systems operated by us or by trusted third-party service providers. Where AI tools are provided by third parties, including cloud-based services, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is handled securely and in accordance with Australian privacy laws.

Overseas disclosure

Some of the recipients to whom we disclose your personal information may be based overseas. It isn't practicable to list every country in which such recipients are located, but it is likely to include the Philippines, India and Nepal.

Credit providers

As part of providing our services, we may undertake tasks for a credit provider that are reasonably necessary to manage the application process. When we do, we act as agent for the credit provider, and the same privacy law requirements apply to both of us.

We may submit your application to one or more credit providers. A full list of the lenders we have access to can be found at connective.com.au/lender-panel and connective.com.au/caf/lender-panel.

A credit provider we submit an application to may disclose information about you to, and collect information about you from, one or more credit reporting bodies. Each credit provider's own website sets out further detail — often under headings like "notifiable matters", "privacy policy", "credit reporting policy" or "privacy disclosure statement and consent" — including your rights to access and correct your information, to complain, and to opt out of pre-screening for direct marketing.

How we protect your information

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or exposure. Staff are required by the terms of their employment to maintain the confidentiality of customer information, and access is restricted to those whose role requires it, through locks, password protection, and firewall and router controls on our premises and systems.

We will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information once it's no longer required for our business functions.

Your rights

You have the right to ask:

• Us to provide you with all the information we hold about you.
• Us to correct that information if it's incorrect.
• Us for a copy of this policy, in a form that suits you (hardcopy or email).
• A credit reporting body not to use your information for direct marketing assessment purposes, including pre-screening.
• A credit reporting body to provide you with a copy of any information it holds about you.

You can gain access to the information we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer at the details below. An administration fee may apply in some cases to cover the cost of providing that information.

For more information on your privacy rights, visit oaic.gov.au.

Credit reporting bodies

We may act as your agent to obtain a report or information about your consumer or commercial credit worthiness from a credit reporting body. To do so, we may disclose personal information such as your name, date of birth and address to confirm it matches information the body already holds. The credit reporting bodies we deal with are:

Complaints

If you have a concern about how we've handled your personal information, contact our Privacy Officer using the details below. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority at afca.org.au.

Contact our Privacy Officer