Privacy

At Rapid Finance (Aust) Pty Ltd we are serious about protecting your privacy. When you appoint us as your agent to arrange finance and insurance we will apply the highest standards of managing personal information. We will adhere to all relevant laws and regulations, the basic Principles detailed below and to our Privacy Policy.

1. We will collect only the personal information necessary to provide services, administer those services and to promote our products to you and any other individuals whose personal information is collected.

2. We will tell you why we are collecting your personal information and what we will need to do with it to facilitate the provision of the finance and insurance we are arranging for you.

3. Where required by the Australian Privacy Principles, we will collect information directly from you and any other individuals with whom we deal. Where we need to collect information from other sources, we will tell you what we are doing, where we are collecting that information from and why.

4. We will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that personal information is stored securely and is protected against misuse or unauthorised access. Where required by the Australian Privacy Principles, we will provide access to an individual and/or organisation in relation to your personal information and assist you or them to correct any errors or omissions in that information.

5. All new Rapid employees will receive training on Rapid’s Privacy Policy and procedures.

6. Our Privacy Policy will be freely available to clients and prospective clients on Rapid Finance’s website.

Rapid Finance constantly reviews all its policies and procedures to keep up to date with changes in the law, technology and market practices. As a result, we may change this privacy policy from time to time. If Rapid considers it necessary as a result of changes in the law, technology and market practices, we will conduct training for all of our staff to ensure those changes are understood and properly implemented.

This policy was last updated on 31 March 2024

At Rapid Finance we want you to be confident that the personal information you provide to us is treated with the highest degree of integrity and privacy.

However, it is equally important to us that we provide the best possible service across our wide range of financial products and services. To achieve this aim we need to make the most efficient use of your personal information.

Personal information is any information about you that identifies you or by which your identity can be reasonably determined.

Collecting your personal information is essential for Rapid Finance to be able to conduct its business of arranging and/or providing financial products and services for its customers. The information we collect, either from you directly, or about you from other sources is necessary to enable us to prepare an application on your behalf.

If we do not collect this information, we may not be able to fully assess your requirements and arrange the financial product that suits your personal circumstances.

• Determine your requirements and apply, on your behalf, for the appropriate product or service.
• Improve our financial products and services
• Identify you and protect you from unauthorised access to your personal information, account or services.

Where possible, we collect your personal information directly from you.

Collection may take place in a number of ways, such as when you complete an online application form or request a product or service over the telephone.

As all of our phone calls are recorded, personal information may be collected when a recording of a call between you and us is made.

Often personal information is collected during the course of our relationship with you. An example of personal information collection may be when you contact us to discuss your existing loans and/or insurances.

Sometimes personal information may be collected about you from other sources. Examples of this and why this would happen are:

• Credit information or payment history we obtain about you from a credit reporting agency or a financier in the course of preparing an application for a loan on your behalf.
• Your employer, in the course of confirming your employment details to support your application.
• Your landlord, in the course of confirming your residence and rent payments to support your application.
• A car dealer who provides initial information to us about you so we can commence preparing a finance and/or insurance application on your behalf.
• In most cases we will require you to specifically consent to any collection, use or disclosure of your personal information by Rapid Finance. You will need to provide your consent by clicking on the “consent” button on our website, or by digitally signing our electronic privacy consent, or by having your consent recorded on the telephone. We will also ask you to sign a consent form when completing your hard copy application documentation.
• Regardless of how your personal information is collected, it is dealt with by Rapid Finance in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

What are 'cookies' and how do they work?

Cookies are small data files that are downloaded from our web servers and stored on your hard drive when you access our website. A cookie is a string of letters and numbers that uniquely identify the computer you are using and the customer number and access code you may have used to register at the site.

Cookies are used on the Rapid website to track a visitor's journey through our site. This allows us to see at a glance which pages and information are of most interest to visitors. This type of cookie contains no personal information at all; simply a record of your journey through the site.

By entering the Rapid website you agree to Rapid’s use of cookies. Most browsers can be configured to refuse to accept cookies. You can also delete cookies from your hard drive. However, doing so may hinder your access to valuable areas of information within our site.

Use of reCAPTCHA

We use Google's reCAPTCHA Enterprise service to protect our website from spam and abuse. This service works by collecting hardware and software information, such as device and application data, from users and sending it to Google for analysis. The use of reCAPTCHA is subject to Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, which can be found at [Google's Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Google's Terms of Use](https://policies.google.com/terms).

Your use of reCAPTCHA is governed by your consent to our privacy policy, which includes the collection, sharing, and use of data as described. We ensure all data handling practices comply with applicable data protection laws and regulations.

We use the personal information that we collect so that we can conduct our business of facilitating and/or providing financial products and services and to administer and enhance the financial service relationship we have with you.

We may also share the information with other companies in the Rapid Finance group.

From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with information about our range of financial products and services. Our contact with you will usually be by mail, telephone, email or other social media, such as Facebook.

If you do not want to receive any of this information just contact us by calling 1300GoRapid (1300 467 274) or by clicking the appropriate button on the website or by writing to us. Once you have told us you no longer wish to receive information about our products and services, we will not send you any further material, unless we are required by law to send such information to you and we will acknowledge your instruction by email or in writing.

You can, however, change your mind about receiving information about our products and services at any time – either way, you just need to let us know.

Rapid Finance does not disclose your personal information to a party outside Rapid Finance for the purposes of allowing them to direct market their products or services to you, unless you have specifically agreed to our doing so.

We will not call personally at your residence or place of work unless you specifically agree to this and we arrange an appointment beforehand.

To arrange the requested financial and insurance facilities we need to pass the personal information we collect to Credit Providers and Insurers whom we approach on your behalf seeking credit and insurance for you.

To be able to provide your application to the Credit Providers and Insurers we may also need to disclose the information (or part of it) to:

• Credit Reporting Agencies and any current and past credit providers both in Australia and New Zealand – for the purpose of obtaining details of your current and past credit payment history
• Your referees, employers and landlords – for the purposes of identifying you correctly when we seek confirmation from them regarding the details you have provided to us.
• Mail service providers – for the mailing of documents, correspondence and Rapid Finance direct marketing material etc.
• Guarantor/s offered on loan applications – for the purpose of allowing them to fully understand the risks they may be taking.
• Rapid may need to disclose your information to multiple credit providers in order to obtain the credit you are seeking. This may include multiple credit checks over the course of the application process. Rapid may continue to seek credit for you until you tell us to stop.

Rapid Finance may also disclose your personal information to others in certain circumstances. For example:

• If we are required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information. For example, to a Court in response to a subpoena or to the Australian Taxation Office following a direction issued under taxation laws.
• We may also disclose your personal information to other parties, but only where you have consented to us doing so. Your consent to the disclosure of your personal information may be given explicitly such as in writing or verbally or may be implied from your conduct EG if you publicly discuss with the media details of your dealings with us.
• Where a Rapid Finance contracted entity is dealing with you then we may need to pass information back to the entity in the course of assessing your application. Each contractor is bound to comply with the provisions of this policy.
  
  

Prior to actually entering into the finance agreement or insurance policy, you will be asked to give your written consent to allow those organisations to use your personal information. They will provide full details of how they intend to use and store the information at that time.

We rely on the personal information we hold about you to efficiently conduct our business of providing or arranging financial products and services.

For this reason, it is very important that the personal information we collect from you is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

During the course of our relationship with you we may ask you to tell us of any changes to your personal information, however you can contact us at any time to update your personal information or to tell us that the information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete.

The protection of your personal information is a priority for Rapid Finance.

This is why we take all reasonable precautions to safeguard your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We employ a number of means to protect your personal information including:

• Secure premises.
• Separately secured Information Technology area.
• Entering into confidentiality agreements with all employees, contractors and third-party organisations.
• Password protecting our computer-based information to prevent unauthorised computer access.
• Providing appropriate protection against “hackers” within our computer systems.
• Securely destroying and/or deleting any personal information that is no longer required from our systems.
• Requiring any contractors to Rapid Finance to adopt the same levels of security as ourselves.
  
  

You may request access to any of the personal information we hold about you.

In most cases, details of the personal information we hold about you is freely available by telephoning, writing to us, or arranging an appointment for a personal visit to our offices.

If the information you seek is not readily available, for example, archived data, then we will endeavour to provide this to you within 30 days of your request. We reserve the right to charge you a fee for this retrieval.

Rapid Finance may be required by law or by good business practice to retain your personal information for a period of time after you have ceased your relationship with us. After the required time has passed, we may securely destroy all hard copies and may delete all electronic copies of your personal information.

Rapid Finance is not always required to provide you with access to your personal information upon your request.

We may refuse you access to personal information in a number of circumstances, such as where the information may relate to existing or anticipated legal proceedings with you, where denying access is required or authorised by law, or where the request for access is regarded as frivolous or vexatious.

If we deny your request for access to, or refuse your request to correct your personal information, we will explain why.

You may request the removal or destruction of your personal information. Such requests must always be in writing and addressed to: The Privacy Officer, Rapid Finance, PO Box 981 South Melbourne, VIC 3205.

We may refuse your request if you have an active loan contract that we have arranged, where your personal information may relate to existing or anticipated legal proceedings involving you, or where retention of that information is required or authorised by law. If we deny your request for removal or destruction of your personal information, we will explain why.

Generally it is not possible for us to do business with you unless we have identified you. This is necessary as standard business practice and also protects you against someone using your name fraudulently to obtain finance or insurance. We will usually ask you for photographic evidence such as a drivers licence or passport. We may also need to carry out a “100 point check” to verify your identity and any information obtained in this activity will be maintained securely in conjunction with any other Personal Information you provide.

We will not use your Tax File Number and if this is provided in any information you give us we will not record it in our files and will remove any reference to it from documents you provide to us.

Wherever it is lawful and practicable to do so, we may offer you the opportunity to deal with us anonymously, if you request it. For example, when making an enquiry about current interest rates applicable or the type of products or services we offer.

Rapid Finance has a call centre operating in Fiji to handle enquiries. The call centre is staffed by a contractor (BDE Group). It is a condition of their engagement that they operate strictly in accordance with Rapid’s privacy policy and operating procedures. Information about any Rapid actual or potential client may only be provided to the third parties with which Rapid has dealings in Australia. 

We may disclose your personal information to entities located outside of Australia, including the following:

• our data hosting and other IT service providers, located in various countries;
  and
• other third parties located in various foreign countries, including Fiji, Philippines & USA.

Your personal information may be stored in the cloud in an overseas country. In the event that a  disclosure is made in an overseas country, they are subject to foreign law. Overseas organisations may be required to disclose information we share with them under a foreign law. In any event, by providing your details, you consent to your information being disclosed in this manner.

If personal information concerns particular topics it is regarded as sensitive information.

Sensitive information can be information about your:

• Racial or ethnic origin
• Political opinions
• Membership of a political association
• Religious beliefs or affiliations
• Philosophical beliefs
• Membership of a professional or trade association
• Membership of a trade union
• Sexual preferences or practices
• Criminal record
• Health

Rapid Finance generally has very limited need to obtain such information, however we may require some information such as criminal record or health records to arrange certain insurance facilities. If such information is needed, then it will only be obtained and/or used with specific consent from you. If, in the course of arranging your application or facilities, such information does come into our possession from a third party, we will seek your consent to collect, store and use this should we consider such use necessary in your application.

As much of Rapid Finance business emanates from referrals through our website, we ensure that any personal information we get online from customers or prospective customers is treated with the same level of care as if it was received via personal contact. Our policies provide that:

• If you make a general email enquiry (usually this involves providing only your name, contact details and type of facility required), we will always ask you for your written consent before we commence any actual application activity on your behalf.
• If you make a full online application, your details will be encrypted via our web technology to provide high level protection from unauthorised access to your personal information. We will also ensure that we hold your written consent before commencing any application activity.

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy or wish to lodge a request to access your personal information you can contact our Privacy Officer in the following ways:

• Email: rapid@gorapid.com.au
• Telephone: 1300 467 274

In writing to:

The Privacy Officer
Rapid Finance
PO Box 981
South Melbourne, VIC 3205