Our Privacy Policy
Find out about our Privacy Notice which summarises how we, Growth Credit Finance Bank Personal Finance plc, trading as Growth Credit Finance Bank Bank and part of the Growth Credit Finance Bank Group (www.Growthcreditfn./about), use your personal data. Please note that product specific Privacy Notices are included within our product documentation.
This page also outlines our Cookies Policy which explains how we use cookies to enhance your experience on our website.
The information on this page was last updated on 02 June 2021.
Introduction
Your personal data: how we collect, use, and protect it
It is very important to us that all our customers trust us to handle their personal data responsibly. We have written this document to explain clearly how we collect, use and protect your personal data. In particular, it explains things like:
- why we need your personal data for certain things
- how we share your personal data with others
- your rights under data protection laws
What the law says about handling personal data
The personal data protection laws control how we use your personal data, for example, we must be transparent about how we collect and use your personal data. They also grant you rights, such as the right to access the personal data that we hold about you (see section ‘Your Rights’).
What the law says about processing
The law requires us to tell you how we process your personal data. “Processing” is a legal term but means anything we do with your personal data, such as collecting, gathering, obtaining, administering, adapting, keeping and deleting your personal data.
We collect and keep data about you
This includes the personal data you give via our website or over the phone when you apply for a product, request a quotation and throughout your time as a Riobanks customer (this includes personal data you may store in the ‘save and retrieve’ function before you submit a quote or an application, and information you submit indirectly via price comparison websites). It also includes personal data you give us any time you write to us or contact us electronically.
We keep data about your accounts and policies
This includes transactions and payments you make and receive.
We may also gather other data about you
We may also obtain and combine data about you from other places, such as the wider Rio Group, credit reference agencies, financial crime prevention agencies, the Claims and Underwriting Exchange, and publicly available resources, such as the electoral register and the internet.
We do this so we can make sure the personal data we hold about you is accurate, to perform checks, and make you offers.
We will keep and use personal data about other people connected to your products
This includes anybody insured under your policy, paying your premiums or occupying your home. We will also keep any personal data you give us about anyone nominated to act on your behalf (this is for the security questions they need to answer before they can change anything on your account/policy).
More information about the times when we collect personal data about you
- When you call us – we monitor and record calls to and from our customer service centres to improve our service and to prevent and detect fraud.
- When you contact us electronically (e.g. by email or internet) – we may collect an electronic identifier, such as your internet protocol address.
- When you visit our website – when your browse our website, we collect data about your browsing habits using cookies.
We will only ask for necessary personal data unless we tell you otherwise
We will ask for personal data that is essential for us to know so that we can provide our products or services to you. If we ask for personal data that is not essential, we will explain why and tell you the consequences if you do not provide us with the personal data.
How does Growth Credit Finance Bank use your personal data?
We use your personal data to provide our services to you
To provide our services to you we will need to use your personal data, and personal data relating to joint applicants, additional cardholders, other insured persons, and anyone else whose personal data is connected with providing a particular product or service.
We will need to use this personal data at all stages of our relationship with you, including:
- when you apply for a product or service or request a quotation
- when you take out a product or service or require to use a service
- during the time we have a relationship with you
- and for a period of time afterwards
The way we use the personal data about you and others includes:
- working out financial and insurance risks by credit scoring
- verifying your identity and eligibility for products, and the identities of joint applicants, and the identities of other insured persons
- assessing your creditworthiness or financial insurance risk (including by credit/insurance risk scoring)
- providing you with quotations and any additional terms of cover
- managing your accounts
- maintaining and updating your policy
- recording and processing claims
- awarding Clubcard points
It is necessary that we are able to use your personal data in this way
We can only provide our products or services if we can use your personal data in this way. The law says we must ask for certain mandatory information, and make certain checks.
Also, if you want to apply for our products or services, you must provide us with mandatory information.
We also use your personal data for other ‘legitimate business interests’
These are other uses allowed by law which are necessary to enable us to provide the products and services. These include:
- detecting and preventing fraud, other forms of financial crime, and other unlawful acts
- tracing and recovering debt
- managing and operating our business
- improving our business
We may use your personal data to improve our business
The law allows us to use your personal data in reasonable ways to help us improve our business. The ways we might use your personal data to improve our business are to:
- understand customers’ needs and requirements
- develop and test products and services
- carry out research and analysis on our products and services
When we use your personal data to improve our business, we always make sure we keep the amount of data we collect and use to an absolute minimum.
Using your personal data to recover money paid to you by mistake
If a person or organisation pays you money by mistake then we will contact you to ask you to return the money. If you do not return the money, then the law says we must give your name and address to the account providers of the person or organisation who sent you the money so they can recover the money from you.
Who do we share your personal data with?
Why we share your personal data
In order to provide our products and services to you, it is necessary for us to share information with third parties. For some third parties we need to share your personal data because they provide a service which we do not provide (such as the Insurers or the Add-on Providers). For other third parties, we are required to share your personal data to prevent fraud and other forms of financial crime, to ensure that we are lending responsibly or to ensure that we are meeting our regulatory requirements.
When we will share your data
- where we have your permission
- where the law says we must
- where sharing the personal data meets the requirements of the data protection laws
Whenever we share data, we only share the amount necessary to achieve the objective of the sharing.
Who we share your data with
- with anyone you nominate to act on your behalf
- with the Growth Credit Finance Bank Providers
- with regulatory bodies and authorities
- with credit reference agencies
- with fraud and other financial crime prevention agencies
- with our panel of insurers (at the quotation stage)
- with the insurers shown on your policy schedule
- with our service providers (including those who provide funding, debt management, administration, fraud and financial crime detection and professional services)
- with other lenders or companies, (if we are, or are considering, transferring the rights and obligations we have with you)
- with another pet insurer, if we have invited you to renew your pet insurance with them
- with other Tesco Group companies
- with our market research agency to contact you with relevant surveys