At Great Pacific Financial Group, we respect our customer’s right to privacy and value the confidence you place in us to safeguard your personal information. This document is a guide to the way that Great Pacific and all related entities (referred to herein as the “Company”, “we” or “us”) collect, use and handle personal information.
What is personal information?
Personal information means any information that is specifically identified with an individual.
Why we collect personal information
The Company is a multi-faceted financial institution that provides a range of property-related financial products and services, including retail lending, funds management and large-scale project financing. The information we collect from you allows us to operate these businesses successfully.
The two key reasons for collecting personal information are:
- to identify a suitable financial product or service from our portfolio that will satisfy your particular requirements; and
- to provide you with updated information about our range of products and services.
How we collect information
The Company only collects personal information by fair and lawful means. We gather information from written documents (such as an application form or customer questionnaire), from the website or verbally when we speak to our clients.
Wherever practicable, we take care to seek your consent to record your personal information. Our clients may choose not to receive any further direct marketing communications at any time.
To ensure the quality of our records, we will use our best endeavours to maintain the accuracy, currency and completeness of all personal information collected. We rely on the accuracy of the personal details provided to us and would appreciate customer’s assistance to contact us if any personal information is found to be inaccurate or incomplete.
Use of information
We only use and disclose personal information for the purpose for which it was revealed to us, or related purposes that would not reasonably require your specific permission.
We do not sell, rent or trade personal information to or with any other organisations, but personal information may be used by other related entities within the Company. For example, we may wish to inform you of a new financial product from a related entity within the Company that we expect to be of interest to you. Naturally, we respect your wishes not to be informed of these promotional correspondences.
We will only disclose personal information to parties outside the Company under the following circumstances:
- For legal reasons, we may disclose personal information to government agencies, courts, or other statutory authorities; and
- Disclosures may be made to the Company’s consultants and contractors (eg. company solicitors, financial advisers, printing companies etc.), to carry out the specific functions. In this event, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that those third parties are in full compliance with the Privacy Act.
Security of information
We have taken all reasonable measures to protect the information in our records. Access to personal information within the Company is strictly limited to prevent any misuse, loss, modification, and unauthorised disclosure.
Access to information
Our customers may request access to their personal information held in our records. We will not unreasonably withhold access but sometimes we may withhold access, for example under the following circumstances:
- providing access would pose a serious threat to any individual;
- providing access would jeopardise the privacy of other individuals;
- where the customer makes an unreasonable request for access for the purpose of creating a nuisance;
- the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between the Company and the individual, and the information would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings;
- providing access would unreasonably prejudice our commercial dealings with the individual;
- providing access would be unlawful;
- denying access is required or authorised by or under law; or
- providing access would jeopardise an investigation of possible unlawful activity.
We will use our best endeavours to provide customers with the requested information in a timely manner.
We may seek reimbursement for providing access to this information where expenses were incurred in retrieving and collating the requested information.
Tax File Numbers
For certain financial products, we are required by law to obtain your Tax File Number (TFN). The handling of TFNs is regulated under the Privacy Act and we are committed to maintaining the security of your TFN in accordance with the Tax File Number Guidelines.
Sensitive information
We will only collect sensitive information about a customer with the express consent of the customer or where the collection is compelled by law.
Under this clause, sensitive information is defined as information on an individual’s:
- racial or ethnic origin;
- political opinions;
- religious or philosophical beliefs;
- membership of any political, professional or trade association;
- sexual preferences or practices;
- criminal record; or
- health.
Compliance and review
With our commitment to deliver the highest standard of services to our customers, we have established strict governance procedures, including employee training and ongoing audit provisions.
We will review and update this Policy as necessary and in compliance with all relevant industry standards and statutory requirements.
Complaints
We continually strive to ensure our clients’ satisfaction and will use our best endeavours to resolve any complaints in a timely manner.
Where complaints cannot be resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction within a reasonable time, the complainant may refer the matter to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Contact details can be found at www.privacy.gov.au.