Processing your data for legitimate business reasons

We process your personal data on the basis that we have a legitimate interest as a commercial organisation:

• To understand how our customers use our products and services, so we can improve these;
• Developing new products and services and identifying which may be of interest to you – this will involve profiling;
• Where we have the relevant permissions, contacting you to make you aware of these products and services – note: we may contact you for a reasonable period after you cease your relationship with us. There is a right you can exercise to opt-out from receiving such communications;
• To make sure we deliver excellent customer service various methods of communication may be used when sending you information about your account. Sometimes this may be by SMS or Email. For example, this may include sending you reminders or receipts for payments or other information in relation to the administration/servicing of your loan. We will always ensure that we are not putting your data at risk;
• Sharing information for the purpose of ensuring your ongoing creditworthiness, throughout the life of your credit product;
• To share information with third parties for the purpose of preventing fraud and financial crime;
• Improving our systems and processes, which may include using your personal data to test the accuracy of these, but only where it is essential to do so;
• To process and analyse applicant data to improve business processes and credit decisions;
• To share applicant data with third parties for the purpose of improving business processes and credit decisions;
• To share your contact details with brokers who introduced you to us to help them with their accounting and administration. Brokers and Introducers sometimes use your information that you provided to them initially to contact you about products and services unless you have asked them directly not to do so;
• To recover money owed to us and trace your whereabouts;
• To otherwise exercise our rights under our contracts with you for the provision of the products and services you hold;
• To invite you to participate in market research and customer surveys;
• To sell to, or purchase debts from other firms.
• Sharing your personal data with any person to whom we may transfer, or may consider transferring any of our rights or business;
• We will also share the personal information you submit with our associated group companies as mentioned above (which includes any company linked to us in some way by common ownership or management) for the purposes of: (a) the provision of products and service you request and (b) consumer profiling and market research (c) business analysis and (d) data verification and data enrichment purposes (e) marketing purposes
• We will share your information with our associated group companies for the following administrative activities:
  • Managing your relationship with us and notifying you of any changes to those products
  • Responding to your queries and complaints
  • Administering offers, competitions and promotions
  • Undertaking affordability reviews
  • Updating, consolidating and improving the accuracy of our records

• In addition, we will share your information with our associated group companies for the following data usage:
  • Transactional analysis
  • Arrears and debt recovery and debt sale activities including where we need to trace your whereabouts
  • Crime detection, prevention and prosecution
  • To evaluate the effectiveness of marketing, and for market research and training
  • To support customer modelling, statistical and trend analysis, with the aim of developing and improving products and services
  • To enable assessment of lending risks by considering all the products you have across the group of companies and also taking into consideration your payment history with any products you previously held for assessing your income and expenditure and periodically updating this information to enable us to make responsible lending decisions.
  • Using your information for profiling to help ensure that if we do market to you this will be relevant to the information we hold about you
  •  Some of this sharing will be done on an individual basis, in other cases the data is shared using a secure transfer process or is uploaded into a central database repository where we are able to apply strict controls over the security and access to that data. By sharing this information, it enables our companies to better understand your needs and run your account(s) in the efficient way you expect.

Processing your data for Contractual reasons

We process personal data to consider and process applications made by our customers and prospective customers for products and services we provide. We would be unable to accept applications or service credit agreements without processing personal data and is needed for ongoing contractual relationships.

• To deliver the products and services we provide, including:
  • Accepting payments on your behalf;
  • Providing you with information, advice and guidance on the products and services you hold;
  • This includes account statements, formal reminders and notices informing you of forthcoming changes;
  • Calculating interest and, where relevant, determining fees and charges which may apply to your account;
  • To address enquiries or complaints we may receive from you or a representative appointed by you;
  • Undertaking credit searches to assess your suitability for a product;
  • Assessing your application using an automated credit decisioning process;
  • Assessing your ability to repay your loan, we may review your income and expenditure, based on data we hold, capture or you provide

Processing your data for Legal reasons

We will treat your information as private and confidential but may share it with other Group companies and only disclose it outside the Group if we are legally obliged to do so or required to do so to satisfy a court order. It will put us in breach of our legal duties if we are prevented from disclosing personal data to certain third-party organisations. Examples of where we would be legally obliged are:

• Passing information to HMRC where a court order is in place;
• Required by the Police and other law enforcement agencies to investigate or prevent crime;
• Required by the authorities when we report on any suspicious activity that could indicate money laundering;
• Undertaking affordability reviews, where we will use all the data across the group companies to ensure we are fully aware of your Group commitments;
• Required to provide information to our industry regulators;
• To otherwise meet our obligations under all laws and regulations based on law which apply to our business activities;
• Identifying and managing risks to our organization; and
• Where we have a duty to protect vulnerable customers.

Where and when we need your consent

There will be circumstances where we will only process your data if we have your consent to do so. For example, if you provide us with data that is classed as a special category of data such as health information, criminal records of convictions and offences, or allegations of criminal offences. We will only process this with your permission (unless we feel the processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or if the law allows us to do so). You have a right at any time to ask us to stop the processing of that specific data. We also seek your permission to use your data for direct marketing activities, see below for further details. If you are experiencing financial difficulties, we may ask for your consent to share your information with not for profit debt advisory services such as StepChange.

Using automated decision-making processes and profiling

As part of the processing of your personal data, decisions may be made by automated means. 

• We may use your personal data in profiling in order to identify your suitability for products and services we offer and to inform you of these. Where an individual’s financial history suggests they are unlikely to be accepted for a particular product or service, we may use that data to opt them out of receiving information about that product or service. This is in individuals’ interests as it helps stop them receiving irrelevant marketing or being targeted with marketing about products that they cannot afford. These types of profiling may only be used in relation to our own products and services and as such are generally not considered to have a significant effect on your rights and interests
• We may place you in groups with similar customers. These are called customer segments. We use these to study and learn about our customers’ needs, and to make decisions based on what we learn. This helps us to design products, services and offers for different customer segments, and to manage our relationships with them.
• We also use customer segments from outside companies we work with – such as social networks – by asking them for groups of people who are similar to you, or have interests that are like yours in some ways. These companies help us look for new customers who may be interested in products, services or offers that our existing customers are interested in. This helps us tailor the marketing that individuals receive or are shown on our own and other websites and mobile apps, including social media. It also helps us to design products, services and offers for different customer segments, and to manage our relationships with them.
• We may also make checks against publicly available information such as the Electoral Register, County Court Judgments (CCJs), bankruptcy, repossession information or via Credit Reference Agencies. These checks may be referred to as “soft searches” and are visible to only you.

How we use Credit Reference Agency data

• If you tell us that you have a financial associate, we will search link and record information about you both at credit reference and fraud prevention agencies. You must be sure you have your financial associate’s agreement to disclose their information.
• We and fraud prevention agencies may also enable law enforcement agencies to access and use your personal data to prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering.
• We will add to your record with the credit reference agencies details of your Agreement with us, the payments you make under it, any default or failure to keep its terms and any change of name or address.
• Account information given to credit reference agencies remains on file for 6 years after the account is closed, whether settled by you or upon default, except where we legitimately believe a longer period is necessary.
• If we have reasonable grounds to believe that our asset is at risk, we may conduct credit reference agency, motor insurance database and fraud prevention agency searches, to confirm or establish your contact details, insurance cover, and to assess or manage our risk.
• Whether or not your application with us proceeds, the credit reference agencies will place a record of our search on your credit file. This record (but not our name) will be seen by other organisations when you apply for credit in the future. A large number of applications within a short period of time could affect your ability to obtain credit.
• The agencies will link your records and those of your financial associate(s), including any previous and subsequent names. These links will remain on your and their files until you or they tell the agency you are no longer financially linked, and the agency accepts this.

The identities of the credit reference agencies (CRAs), their role also as fraud prevention agencies, the data they hold, the ways in which they use and share personal information, data retention periods and your data protection rights with the CRAs are explained in more detail at:

• Transunion
• Equifax
• Experian

How we use Fraud Prevention Agency data

• Whenever fraud prevention agencies transfer your personal data outside of the UK and European Economic Area, they impose contractual obligations on the recipients of that data to protect your personal data to the standard required in the UK and European Economic Area. They may also require the recipient to subscribe to ‘international frameworks’ intended to enable secure data sharing.
• We process your personal data on the basis that we have a legitimate interest in preventing fraud and money laundering, and to verify identity, in order to protect our business and to comply with laws that apply to us. Such processing is also a contractual requirement of the services or financing you have requested.
• With fraud prevention or law enforcement agencies, in the event false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud or money laundering is identified. We and other organisations will also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example when checking details on applications for credit and credit related and other facilities, managing credit and credit-related accounts or other facilities, recovering debt, checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance, and checking details of job applicants and employees
• We will request that information held by credit reference and fraud prevention agencies, other industry participants and the Motor Insurance Database be disclosed to us and other organisations to, for example:
  • Prevent fraud and money laundering, for example by checking details on applications for credit and credit-related or other facilities, proposals and claims for all types of insurance and job applications and employee records
  • To identify you when you contact us or visit our website, and to prevent and detect fraud or money laundering. This may involve the use of voice detection technology to analyse recordings of your telephone calls with us
  • Recover debts that you owe and trace your and the goods whereabouts
  • Manage credit accounts and other facilities
  • Verify your identity
  • Make decisions on credit, insurance and other facilities about you, your financial associate(s), members of your household or your business
  • Carry out statistical analysis to help with decisions about credit and account management
  • Assess that the vehicle you have agreed to purchase from us pursuant to the terms of the agreement is fully insured under a comprehensive insurance policy.
  • Whether or not your application with us proceeds, a record of any fraud or money laundering risk will be retained by the fraud prevention agencies, and may result in others refusing to provide services, financing or employment to you.
  • Fraud prevention agencies can hold your personal data for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to six years.

Direct Marketing

If you consent to direct marketing, depending on the methods you have agreed to, we and our group companies will contact you by post, email, telephone or mobile text and/or messaging service (SMS) about Moneybarn and group company products or services we have available which we think are relevant to you. You have a legal right to prevent your information being used for direct marketing purposes. If you do not want your information to be used for these marketing purposes, you can opt out by calling our Customer Services Team on 0330 555 1230, or by emailing customerservices@moneybarn.com or you can write to us at: Moneybarn, Athena House , Bedford Road, Petersfield GU32 3LJ.

Retaining your personal data

We will generally keep your personal data for a minimum of the term of your loan agreement with us plus 6 years, after which time it will be destroyed if it is no longer required for the lawful purpose(s) for which it was obtained. If you consent to us using your data for Marketing, any information we use for this purpose will be kept with us until you notify us that you no longer wish to receive this information.

Processing your data outside of the UK and European Economic Area

We may use service providers, agents and subcontractors to provide services on our behalf. This may require these organisations to access and process your personal data.
From time to time your personal data may be transferred to organisations that are based in countries outside the European Economic Area and the UK. In these circumstances, we will ensure they process your personal data only in accordance with the applicable data protection legislation and under strict organisational and contractual controls.

Who else we share your personal data with

• We may pass your personal information to local authorities, councils, or other similar local government agencies in pursuing their or our legitimate interests.
• The personal information we hold about you will be disclosed to our funders, and may be disclosed by them to their funders and in each case to their professional advisors. It may also be used for statistical analysis, testing, marketing and training purposes, both internally and externally.
• We will share your personal information with third parties under the following circumstances:
  • Credit reference agencies may add to their records about you, information about our search of their records and your application with us, and this will be seen by other organisations that make searches.
  • With a purchaser, in the event our business or all its assets are acquired by a third party (in which case personal information held about customers will be one of the transferred assets)
  • To enforce any of our terms and conditions
  • With individuals who you nominate as your referees to verify certain information that you provide to us
  • If required or compelled to do so by any legal authority, as required by law or when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on us
• We will also share your information with local authorities, councils, government and law enforcement agencies if a formal request is received. The use of your data by any of these parties will be governed by data protection and other relevant laws.
• Information held and obtained by us in relation to you will be passed to our agents for the purposes of taking enforcement action against you and/or a third party pursuant to our rights under the Agreement.
• We will also pass your details and information obtained on you if we transfer/assign our rights and duties in this Agreement to the transferee and/or its professional advisors, and may do so in advance of any transfer to assist in preparation for a transfer.
• We will share your information with your bank and other agencies to the extent necessary, and to perform checks for the prevention of fraud, to verify your banking details, and to validate your identification.

Using third parties

We will also share your information with:

• Other third-party service providers, who act as agents to perform tasks on behalf of and under the instructions of Moneybarn. These service providers must agree to use personal information only for the purposes for which they have been engaged by us and must either: (1) comply with mechanisms permitted by the European data protection law(s) for transfers and processing of personal information (including contractual obligation under the EU model clauses); or (2) agree to provide adequate protections for the personal information that are no less protective than those set forth in this notice.
• Lenders, credit reference agencies, customer service providers and collection agencies. We have trusted relationships with these carefully selected third parties who perform services on our behalf. All service providers are bound by contract to maintain the security of your personal information.