‘We’, ‘us’, ‘our’ and/or ‘Group’ refer to VSMA Group Pty Ltd (ACN 637 542 520); and/or our recommended affiliates.
We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This online Privacy Statement sets out our commitment in respect of personal information we hold about you and what we do with that information as you access and interact with our website.
We recognise that any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes we have collected it or as allowed under the law. It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way which ensures protection of your personal information.
Our commitment in respect to personal information we collect, hold, use and/or disclose is that it be done so in compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and in particular the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) found in that Act.
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 type of personal information we may collect can include (but is not limited to) name, address, date of birth, contact details, income, expenses, assets and liabilities, account balances, tax, bank and financial statements, government entitlement details and any other information we consider necessary to assist you with financial and investment advice.
If you are applying for finance, the personal information we hold about you may also include credit information. Credit information is information which is used to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance and may include the ages and number of your dependants and cohabitants, as well as the length of time at your current address, any finance that you have outstanding, your repayment history in respect of those loans, and any defaults.
Usually, credit information is only exchanged between credit and finance providers and credit reporting bodies. If you are applying for insurance, we may also collect information that relates to a person’s racial or ethnic origin, sexual preferences or activities, criminal record, state of health and medical history.
If we are assisting you with investments, superannuation or providing financial planning advice we will also collect information in relation to your existing investment and superannuation products.
We may also collect sensitive information which relates to a person’s racial or ethnic origin, membership of political bodies, religions or trade unions, sexual preferences or activities, criminal record, state of health and medical history. These pieces of information are usually needed for applications for personal insurance and to manage claims on those products. It may also be relevant to credit and other applications. It is our policy that sensitive information will be used and disclosed only for the purposes for which it was provided, unless the customer agrees otherwise or the use of disclosure of this information is allowed by law. Documents asking for sensitive information will explain this. We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent.
The way we use tax file numbers (TFN) and information received from a credit reporting agency about an individual is also restricted by law.
The Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015 (TFN Rule) states that TFN information must only be collected, retained or disclosed by TFN recipients for a purpose authorised by taxation law, personal assistance law or superannuation law. A breach of the TFN Rule is an interference with privacy under the Privacy Act. It is not an offence if you do not give us your TFN, however sometimes there may be a financial consequence (e.g. it may affect the tax rate applied against investments).
Our business is to understand and meet our customer’s need over their lifetime for a wide range of financial and other services. By law, we cannot provide advice without fully knowing and understanding your personal and financial circumstances. To do this effectively, we need to collect your personal information. We may also collect your personal information for the purposes of managing our relationship with you. From time to time we may offer you other products and services, or for direct marketing to keep you informed about legislation changes that may apply to you.
This means we can use your information to:
From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about finance, offers you may find of interest, changes to our organisation, or new products or services being offered by us or any company with whom we are associated.
If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may at any time decline to receive such information by telephoning us on 1300-00-VSMA or by writing to us at L8 10 Queens Road Melbourne VIC 3004. If the direct marketing is by email you may also use the unsubscribe function. We will not charge you for giving effect to your request and will take all reasonable steps to meet your request at the earliest possible opportunity.
In most cases, your personal information will be collected when you meet with our representative, provide your information via telephone or electronic and written material. In some instances, your information may also need to be collected from third parties, as permitted by the Privacy Act 1988, such as the assigned accountant, mortgage broker, financial planner, financial advisor or solicitor. We will do this only if it’s reasonably necessary to do so, for example, where:
What if you don’t want to provide us with your personal information? If you don’t provide your information to us, it may not be possible:
We make limited use of cookies on this website. We only use them to improve the functionality of our website, not to store any of your personal information. Most Internet browsers automatically accept cookies. Users may be able to change the settings to prevent it.
We will collect your credit information in the course of you answering the enquiries we make of you relating to the credit assistance you seek from us. In addition to what we say above about collecting information from other sources, other main sources for collecting credit information are:
VSMA Group Pty Ltd trains its employees, representatives and their staff who handle personal information to respect the confidentiality of customer information and the privacy of individuals. We regard breaches of your privacy seriously and will impose appropriate penalties, including dismissal. VSMA Group Pty Ltd has appointed a Privacy Officer to ensure that our management of personal information is in accordance with this statement and the Privacy Act.
We hold personal information in a combination of secure computer storage facilities and paper-based files and take steps to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure.
We may need to maintain records for a significant period of time. However, when we consider information is no longer needed, we will remove any details that will identify you or we will securely destroy the records.
Although VSMA Group takes reasonable steps through the use of encryption and other methods to ensure the security of any information you transmit to us, if you send any information, including your email address, you do so at your own risk.
We may, on your authority, request a Credit Report from one of the Credit Reporting Agencies on your behalf. Credit Reports provide information on your previous Credit history and may prove useful in determining the lender more suited to your circumstances. A credit report gives us information about your credit history. Credit reports are provided by credit reporting bodies who collect and share credit information with credit providers and other service businesses like phone companies. The Privacy Act limits the information we can give to credit reporting bodies, and that they can give us.
We use information from credit reporting bodies to confirm your identity, assess your ability to manage credit, and manage our relationship with you. A copy of the Credit Report will be made available on your request.
This site may contain some links to third party sites. VSMA Group is not responsible for and makes no representations concerning the condition of content of, or product offerings at the third party sites. You can read the privacy statement of each site you visit, when you leave our site.
We will always give you access to your personal information unless there are certain legal reasons why we can’t. You can ask us in writing to access your personal information that we hold. In some cases, we may be able to deal with your request over the phone.
We will give you access to your information in the form you want it where it’s reasonable and practical. We may charge you a small fee to cover our costs when giving you access, but we will always check with you first.
Depending on the type of request that you make we may respond to your request immediately, otherwise we usually respond to you within seven (7) business days of receiving your request. We may need to contact other entities to properly investigate your request.
We’re not always required to give you access to your personal information. Some of the situations where we don’t have to give you access include when:
If we can’t provide your information in the way you’ve requested, we will provide you with an explanation in writing.
If any of the personal information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out of date you may request that we correct or update the information. If appropriate we will correct or update the personal information at the time of the request; otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven (7) business days of receiving your request. Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected or updated the personal information within thirty (30) business days.
We may need to consult with other entities as part of our investigation. If we refuse to correct or update personal information, we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.
If you would like to access, update or correct the personal information you have provided to us, you can do so by emailing info@vsma.com.au.
We are committed to being open about how we use personal information. Your personal information will be collected and held by Authorised & Credit Representatives, Staff and related body corporates of the VSMA Group Pty Ltd and its related affiliates. We may disclose your personal information as follows:
Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:
We collect most personal information directly from you. We may also collect information from you electronically, for instance, when you visit our website. If you’re an internet customer of ours, we monitor your use of internet services to ensure we can verify you and can receive information from us, and to identify ways we can improve our services for you. Your internet protocol address (or “IP address”) is the numerical identifier from your device when you are using the internet. It may be necessary to collect your IP address for your interaction with some parts of our website.
Sometimes we may send your information overseas, including to:
If we do this, we make sure there are arrangements in place to protect your information.
We may confidentially disclose your personal information to overseas entities that provide support functions to us. You may obtain more information about these entities, if relevant, by contacting us.
In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you, however, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information, for example, if you make general inquiries about interest rates or current promotional offers.
If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act, you may contact us on 1300-00-VSMA or by email to info@vsma.com.au.
We will acknowledge your complaint within seven (7) business days. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within thirty (30) business days.
If you are dissatisfied with the response of our complaints officer, you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner:
Online: www.oaic.gov.au/privacy
Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
Mail: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 or GPO Box 2999 Canberra ACT 2601
If an issue has not been resolved to your satisfaction, you can lodge a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, or AFCA. AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to consumers.
Website: www.afca.org.au
Email: info@afca.org.au
Telephone: 1800 931 678 (free call)
In writing to: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
You may request further information about the way we manage your personal information by contacting us on 1300-00-VSMA or by email to info@vsma.com.au.
We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and marketplace practices.
As a consequence, we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as the need arises. You may request this privacy policy in an alternative form.
This Privacy Policy has been updated on 24/03/2021.