Automotive Financial Services Logo

AFS - Privacy Policy

Central to the success of AFS is our commitment to our clients. We take our obligations to handle your personal information in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act seriously. This Privacy Policy sets out details about how we manage your personal information.

In this Privacy Policy, 'we', 'us' and 'our' refer to Automotive Financial Services Pty Limited, ACN 003 622 375, Australian Credit Licence 383762 and its Related Bodies Corporate (together “AFS”).

1. The personal information we collect and hold

When we refer to “personal information” we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent. This information may include information or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include credit information.  

We generally collect and hold the following kinds of personal information relating to our customers or loan applicants:

  • name, date of birth, address, telephone number, email address or other contact details;
  • information that we require to identify customers or loan applicants, including such information which is required under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, for example, details or copies of your ID documentation to verify your identity;
  • information relevant to the financial services that we provide, including information about the customer/applicant's financial position, such as, but not limited to:
    • details of assets and liabilities, including investments and any existing debts like your home mortgage or other personal loans;
    • details of income, including employment status, occupation and the name of employer;
    • proof of financial position, including pay slips or tax statements;
    • ‘credit information’ being the information which is used to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance and will generally include the type and amount of credit applied for/provided to you, your repayment history, cases where you were overdue in making payments, any prior credit infringements and information about court judgements which relate to credit provided to you or which you have applied for; and
    • information contained in credit reports supplied from credit reporting bodies, including your credit score;
  • information about the products and services customers have obtained from AFS, including information about the ongoing management and activity of the finance products we have provided;
  • records of our interactions with you, including by telephone, email and online; and
  • your enquiries or complaints. 

We may require you to provide personal information about other third parties (e.g. your spouse, a joint account holder or dependents). If so, you confirm that you have obtained the necessary consents from that party to disclose such information to AFS and have informed that third party of the purpose for disclosure.

We may also collect and hold what is referred to as ‘sensitive information’ about you, which includes information or an opinion about your racial or ethnic origin, criminal records, memberships of professional or trade associations or unions, political views, religious beliefs and health information. We will only collect your sensitive information with your consent. 

We may collect and hold health information where we are assisting customers to procure products with an insurance component. We do not use or share that information for any purpose other than the underwriting or administration of a customer's policy, claim or account, or as otherwise disclosed to the customer when the information was collected.

2. Why we collect your personal information

We only collect and hold personal information about you which is reasonably necessary for our functions, which includes the following purposes:

  • providing you quality products or services;
  • assessing an application for finance and any guarantee and related insurance proposal;
  • arranging the finance and any related insurance;
  • maintaining your contact details and the ongoing management of any finance, guarantees and any ancillary services;
  • conducting audits, credit analysis, research, risk management and portfolio analysis;
  • complying with applicable laws both in Australia and overseas, including (without limitation):
    • the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth); and
    • the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth);
  • direct marketing of products and services by us;
  • managing our relationship with you;
  • improving our level of service including responding to inquiries and complaints;
  • developing our expertise and know-how; and
  • training and quality assurance.

Additionally, in the course of our business we collect and hold personal information about finance brokers, loan originators and other business partners and affiliates in order to manage and improve our relationships with those persons and the services we provide. 

3. How personal information is collected

If you are a credit applicant, we may collect personal information about you directly from you or through finance brokers or other loan originators who submit your credit application to us on your behalf. We may also collect personal information about you from the following sources:

  • businesses which provide information about your creditworthiness i.e. credit reporting bodies;
  • any credit provider named in the application for finance or a credit report obtained from a credit reporting body. In particular information about creditworthiness, credit standing, credit history or credit capacity, the status of the finance and any default by you in accordance with the Privacy Act;
  • any sources disclosed in your application for finance (such as referees, past and present employers, past and present landlords, next of kin, and persons acting on your behalf such as car or finance brokers);
  • funders, trustees and related service providers that assist in the processing of applications and management of credit;
  • any guarantor or proposed guarantor of the application for finance;
  • referrers, suppliers of goods, mercantile agents, collection agencies, insurance product providers;
  • AFS 's agents, contractors and external advisers;
  • government authorities (e.g. tax authorities in Australia and overseas) in connection with their lawful information requests or to meet legal obligations in any relevant jurisdiction;
  • AFS’s associates, related entities or contractors including but not limited to our related bodies such as Go Car Finance Limited, Money 3 Loans Pty Ltd and Solvar Limited;
  • from publicly available resources such as personal insolvency information available in the National Personal Insolvency Index; and
  • issuers of the identification document via the use of third-party verification systems.

4. Cookies

A 'cookie' is a packet of information placed on a user's computer by a website for record keeping purposes. Cookies may be used on the AFS’ website to:

  • access online services - if you visit the AFS website and log into our secure areas we will use cookies to enable us to authorise your access;
  • manage advertising - we use advertising companies to deliver our online advertising. When you see our ads on third-party websites, cookies are sometimes used to collect information about what pages you visit and the type of software you are using; and
  • monitor site traffic - we use tracking companies to gather information about how people interact with our website for the purpose of enhancing our content and customer engagement.

The information we collect may include the time of visit, which pages were visited, and the type of software you are using. 

None of the information collected via the use of cookies, can be used to personally identify you. Notwithstanding this, you can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences. 

Please be advised that if you disable cookies on your web browser or reject specific cookies from our website or linked sites, then you may not be able to gain full access to all content and facilities provided on our website.

5. Dealing with AFS online

If you visit AFS website to browse, read or download information, our system will log these movements. These web site logs are not personally identifiable and AFS makes no attempt to link them with the individuals who browse the site.

Your account information is password protected and we recommend you do not divulge your password to anyone. To further protect your personal information, your log-in time will automatically expire after a certain period of inactivity.

AFS cannot guarantee or accept responsibility for the privacy practices or the content of web sites to which we provide links.

6. Information from third parties

Our website may contain links to the websites of third party providers of goods and services. If you have accessed such websites through our website and those third parties collect information about you, they may share that information as part of our arrangements with those parties. 

7. Security of information

The security of your information is very important to us.

We regularly review developments in security and encryption technologies. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. 

We take all reasonable steps to protect the information in our systems from misuse, interference, loss, and any unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We take reasonable steps to preserve the security of cookie and personal information in accordance with this policy. If your browser is suitably configured, it will advise you whether the information you are sending us will be secure (encrypted) or not secure (unencrypted).

8. How we hold personal information

We use security procedures and modern technology to protect the personal information that we hold. Much of the information we hold is stored electronically on servers rented to AFS or AFS’ related bodies that are located in both Australia and overseas. 

We assure you that access to and use of this information within AFS is appropriately limited to protect against misuse or unlawful disclosure of your information.

9. Credit-related personal information

We exchange your credit information with credit reporting bodies to form a view on your creditworthiness which assists us in assessing your application for finance and managing your finance moving forward. We may disclose your personal information, including to the following credit reporting bodies. You can access/request a copy of their policy about the management of credit-related personal information via the below contact details:

Equifax Pty Ltd
Website: www.equifax.com.au
Phone: 13 83 32
Post: PO Box 964, North Sydney NSW 2059

Illion Pty Ltd
Website: www.illion.com.au
Phone: 13 23 33
Post: PO Box 7405, St Kilda Road VIC 3004

Experian Pty Ltd
Website: www.experian.com.au
Phone: 03 8622 1600
Post: Level 26, 2 Southbank Blvd, Southbank VIC 3006

When you apply for credit with us, we may collect personal information about you, including information that we are likely to disclose to a credit reporting body. In compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2024, we must notify you of the following:

(a) If we make an information request to a credit reporting body regarding your creditworthiness:

(i)    your consent is not required for this disclosure; 
(ii)    a record of the information request may be used by the credit reporting body or other credit providers to assess your credit worthiness, including calculating your credit score or credit rating; and 
(iii)    such an information request may have an impact on your credit score or credit rating, which is determined by the credit reporting body; and

(b) The credit reporting body may include the information we provide in reports that assist other credit providers in assessing your creditworthiness.

To ensure you have access to the most up-to-date credit information, you should request a copy of your credit information from the above mentioned credit reporting bodies. You can contact the credit reporting bodies directly via the contact details mentioned above.

If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to any finance that we have provided or you commit a serious credit infringement, we may disclose this information to a credit reporting body.
You have the right to request access to the credit information that we hold about you and to make a request that we correct that credit information if necessary. Please refer to the next subheading for details on how to do so.

Sometimes your credit information will be used by credit reporting bodies for the purposes of ‘pre-screening’ of direct marketing by credit providers. You can contact the credit reporting body at any time to request that your credit information is not used in this way.

If you believe you are a victim of fraud, you may contact the credit reporting body to advise them accordingly and request that they not use or disclose your credit reporting information.
You may request to have these credit reporting matters extracted from this policy and provided to you in an alternative form.

10. How you can access and seek correction of your information

You can contact us to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details listed below. Generally, we will give you access to your personal information. 

In limited situations we may not comply with your request for access to your personal information where there is a lawful reason to do so, for example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, or if your request is vexatious.

If access is denied, we will provide you with the reason why unless, having regard to the grounds for refusal, it would be unreasonable for us to do so. We may charge a fee for our costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you.

You can also contact our Privacy Officer to request that we correct personal information that we hold about you. We may need to consult with other finance providers, credit reporting bodies or other entities to verify your request as part of our due diligence. If we refuse to correct your information, we will advise you of our reasons for doing so.

11. Disclosing your information overseas

We may disclose your credit information to overseas entities that provide support functions to us or for analytical and business purposes.

You may obtain more information about these cross-border disclosures by contacting us via the contact details at the bottom of this policy.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, it is not practicable to list every country in which overseas recipients are located, but some of the countries that we may disclose personal information we collect about you include New Zealand and the Philippines.

If you are a credit applicant and have been a resident in New Zealand, we are likely to disclose your identification information (which is a subset of Credit Information) to an overseas recipient located in New Zealand in order to obtain credit information about you from New Zealand sources.

12. Marketing

We may use and disclose your personal information to inform you about other products and services we think may be of interest to you in the future, including sharing your personal information with our related entities so that they too can inform you about their great products and services.

We respect your right to ask us not to use your information for direct marketing and AFS and our related entities agree not to send you marketing communications if you so request by contacting AFS using the contact details set out below.

13. Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with the way we have dealt with your personal information, think that we have breached the Privacy Act or the Credit Reporting Code of Conduct, or that your credit information has been compromised, you may make a complaint by contacting our Privacy Officer at the contact details listed below.

We will endeavour to acknowledge your complaint within one business day of receiving it and endeavour to provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 calendar days.

Credit-related Complaints

For credit-related complaints, we will endeavour to provide you with a written notice which sets out how we propose to deal with the complaint within 7 days of receiving it. We may consult with credit reporting bodies or other credit providers about the complaint, where we consider it necessary and relevant to do so. 

After we have reasonably investigated your complaint, which we endeavour to be no later than 30 days from the date of your compliant, we will provide you with a further notice which sets out our findings and the decision reached. 

If you disagree with our decision, whether it be credit-related or otherwise, you may refer your complaint:

  • in the first instance, to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), an external review scheme to which we belong, that can be contacted by writing to GPO Box 3 Melbourne VIC 3001, by phoning 1800 931 678 or lodging a dispute online at www.afca.org.au; or
  • if your complaint is still not resolved, to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by visiting www.oaic.gov.au, calling 1300 363 992 or by emailing enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy or the handling of information, please contact our Privacy Officer via the details below:

Privacy Officer
Phone: 1800 688 995
Mail: Automotive Financial Services Pty Limited, GPO Box 443, Brisbane QLD 4001
Email: privacy@afs.com.au

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. Such amendments will be effective at the time the amended policy is published on our website.

This privacy policy was last updated in August 2023.

16. Disclaimer

The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only.

This information is provided by AFS and whilst we endeavour to keep the information up-to-date and correct, AFS gives no warranty and accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or the completeness of the material. Any reliance the user places on such information is therefore strictly at their own risk.

AFS reserves the right at any time to make changes, as it deems appropriate.

 

Version 05062025