Guide to the use of information.

This guide explains how BanCredit ("we" or "us") will use your data when you have applied for a Bancredit product or service. Sections 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 5, 6 and 7 apply to all products and services offered by BanCredit . If you are applying for a Bancredit product with credit facilities, sections 4.2 to 4.6 and section 8 are also applicable. Before applying for any Bancredit product or service, please take your time to read this information.

1.	The information we may collect about you.
1.1	We may collect information about you in a number of ways in the course of our dealing with you or your application, operating your accounts and liaising with credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies. Your private information (as referred to in this guide) includes all of your personal data, including any photograph that we take of you, together with any signature that we obtain from you, as part of our account opening process for identity verification purposes.
1.2	If you open an account with us and you are under 18, we may also collect information about your parent or legal guardian who helped you open your account. We may use and retain their information solely for identity verification purposes.
1.3	You must not give us private information about someone else (such as a joint applicant or a parent or guardian as referred to in paragraph 1.2 above) without first getting their consent for it to be used and disclosed in the ways described in this document. We will assume that he or she has consented, although we may still ask for confirmation.
2.	Our obligation to keep your information secure and confidential.

We are obliged by law to keep your private information secure. We will not use or disclose your private information to anyone else, unless:

●	we are allowed to do so in accordance with the terms and conditions of any Bancredit products that you have signed up to;
●	you consent to such use or disclosure;
●	we are required or permitted by law or the public interest;
●	we are required to disclose it to third parties that help us to provide our services to you (in which case, we will ensure that they are subject to appropriate obligations of confidentiality and data security in relation to your private information); or
●	it is required by others to investigate or prevent crime or terrorism.

We will take appropriate measures to ensure that your private information is processed securely and confidentially.

3.	When we may use your information.
3.1	We may, where one (or more) of the conditions set out in paragraph 2 above is satisfied, use your private information for any of the following purposes:
●	providing you with services and notifying you about important changes or developments to those services;
●	identity verification purposes;
●	tracing your whereabouts;
●	collecting money that you owe us;
●	updating, consolidating and improving records;
●	crime or terrorism detection, prevention and prosecution;
●	responding to your enquiries and complaints;
●	administering offers, competitions and promotions;
●	evaluating the effectiveness of marketing and for research, training and statistical analysis with the aim of improving services;
●	assessing lending and insurance risks;
●	identifying products, services and facilities that may be of interest to you;
●	checking details of job applicants and employees; and/or
●	where we have your consent to do so, telling carefully selected third parties about you if we think that you may be interested in hearing from them about their products or services.

We may, from time to time, tell you of other ways in which your private information may be used by us.

3.2.	We (or the carefully selected third parties referred to in paragraph 3.1 above) may contact you about other services that we (or they) believe might be of interest to you. We may do this by post or by phone, unless you told us not to when you signed up to your BanCredit product. We may also do this by email, text or other electronic means where we have your consent to do so. You may notify us if you would prefer us not to contact you with marketing materials or if you would prefer that we did not contact you by certain means (for example, if you no longer consent to receiving marketing materials by text message, phone or email).
4.	Credit Reference Agencies.
4.1.	We will search your record at credit reference agencies ('CRAs') when considering your application. We may share your private information with CRAs to verify your identity and suitability for an account, service or facility or as part of our fraud prevention measures. CRAs use information from a number of different public sources (for example, the Electoral Roll, County Court judgments and bankruptcies), as well as information from other banks or lenders on how you manage your other banking or credit arrangements. If you apply for one of our current accounts or credit, we may use details of your credit history to assess your ability to meet your financial commitments.
4.2.	CRAs will record details of your application and our search which will form part of your credit history. They will do this whether or not you proceed with your application. These details will be seen by other organisations that examine your record. Records relating to one or more of your partners may already be linked to your record and we may consider such 'associated' records when considering your application.
4.3	In the terms and conditions of our products, we outline what you should do if you get into financial difficulties. We will give you at least 28 calendar days' notice before we disclose information about any default (which is not being disputed) by you to the CRAs. We may give you this notice at the time we take formal action against you. This will give you at least 28 calendar days to try to repay or come to some other satisfactory arrangement with us before we pass your default information to the CRAs. If we do disclose your default information to the CRAs, this may affect your ability to obtain further credit.
4.4	If you make a joint application for one of our current accounts or credit, an 'association' linking your financial records with those of your fellow applicant(s) will be created by the CRAs. This will be entered into each of your financial records until one of you successfully applies to the CRAs for a disassociation.
4.5	If you hold one of our current accounts or obtain credit from us, all details of our agreement with you for that product may be added to your record, as well as any other private information you provide and information relating to payments you make under that agreement (including any breach of that agreement).
4.6	How to find out more

You can contact the CRAs currently operating in the UK; the information they hold may not be the same so it is worth contacting them all. They will charge you a small fee.

●	CallCredit, Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ or call 0870 0601414.
●	Equifax , Credit File Advice Centre, PO Box 3001, Bradford, BD1 5US or call 0870 010 0583 or log on to www.myequifax.co.uk
●	Experian, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 8000, Nottingham NG80 7WF or call 0844 4818000 or log on to www.experian.co.uk.
5.	Crime prevention and debt recovery.
5.1	We may exchange your private information (including copies of your identification, photographs, signature and any other personal data that we hold about you) with fraud prevention or law enforcement agencies and other organisations (including CRAs, other lenders and operators of card schemes) both within the UK and abroad. We may do this to assist with the investigation or prevention of crime or terrorism, to verify your identity or to meet our legal obligations
5.2	If you give us false or inaccurate information and fraud is identified, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies and/or CRAs. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information.
5.3	We and other organisations may access and use your private information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when:
●	checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities;
●	managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities;
●	recovering debts;
●	checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance;
●	checking details of job applicants and employees.
5.4	Please contact us mail@bancredit.net, if you wish to receive details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies.
5.5	We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies and/or CRAs.
	Debt recovery
5.6	We may exchange your private information (both within the UK and abroad) with debt recovery agencies and other organisations (including CRAs and other lenders). We may do this if we think this would help to recover money you owe us.
6.	Transferring your information abroad.

In providing some of our services to you, we may process and/or store your private information abroad. The terms and conditions for your Bancredit products will tell you if your information might be transferred abroad in this way.

7.	Accessing and updating your information.
7.1	Under data protection laws, you can make a written request for a copy of the private information that we hold about you. We may charge a small administrative fee for this. We may require proof of your identity before doing so. You can ask us to change your private information in order to keep it accurate and current (and please remember that it is your responsibility to advise us of any updates to your details, although we may check with you that everything is up to date from time to time).
7.2	We may make and retain copies of passports, driving licences or other identification evidence that you provide for our own internal security and business needs.
7.3	We will obtain your written consent before providing a banker's reference about you. However, if we receive a request from another bank or financial institution to verify your identity for money laundering prevention purposes, we may provide this information without seeking your consent.
8.	Credit scoring.
8.1	We are responsible lenders. We take into account your personal circumstances to establish whether to open a current account or lend to you. To help us to do this, we may have regard to a process called 'credit scoring' used by us or CRAs. We or the relevant CRA take into account available information about you – such as your ability to repay, your credit history and stability factors such as how long you have lived at your present address. Points are allocated for each piece of relevant information. These points are then added up to produce a score. When your score reaches a certain level, we may use this together with other relevant factors to help determine whether we will agree to your application. If your score does not reach this level, then we may not do so or we may only agree to make limited facilities available to you. Additionally, we have policy rules to determine whether we will open a current account or lend. These reflect our commercial experience and requirements. We make the decision whether or not to allow you to open an account with us or to lend to you.
8.2	The points allocated under credit scoring are based on a thorough analysis of large numbers of repayment histories over many years of providing credit. This statistical analysis enables us or CRAs to identify characteristics that predict a likelihood of future performance. We believe it is fair and impartial, and helps to produce consistent decisions. It also helps us to determine the affordability of our facilities for you. We try to assess the impact that any borrowing you request may have on your overall financial well-being.
8.3	Every credit or loan application involves a certain level of repayment risk for a lender, no matter how reliable or responsible an applicant is. Credit scoring helps us to calculate the level of repayment risk for each applicant based on available information. If that level of risk is unacceptable for us, having regard to your credit score and other matters, we will decline the application. This simply means that based on the available information, we are not prepared to take the risk of granting the loan. We, like other lenders, are not obliged to accept an application. Different lenders have different lending policies and systems. This means that another lender may accept your application, even if we do not.
8.4	If we are unable to accept your application, we will tell you. If we can, we will also tell you the principal reason why we did not accept your application. If your application is declined, we will not pass this information on to a CRA. You may contact us and ask us to reconsider our decision. If you do, we will generally ask you to provide us with additional information that we need.
9.	Miscellaneous.
9.1	We may monitor and record any phone calls with you to check we have carried out your instructions correctly, to resolve complaints, to help improve our service and to help investigate or prevent fraud or other crimes. Any recordings we make will belong to us.

How to find out more.

9.2	You can contact us in writing about our use of your data at: mail@bancredit.net