PRIVACY POLICY

Metro Moneywise Credit Union Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting our members’ privacy. The Credit Union will only mark information as mandatory where that information is required to either allow us to meet our legal obligations, or enable us to enter into a contract with you. Where you are not able to provide us with this information, we may not be able to open an account for you. Where we request further information about you not required for these reasons, we will ask for your consent.

How we use your personal information

Metro Moneywise Credit Union may process, transfer and/ or share personal information in the following ways:

For legal reasons, to:

  • Confirm your identity
  • Perform activity for the prevention of financial crime
  • Carry out external and internal auditing
  • Record basic information about you on a register of members

For performance of our contract with you, to:

  • Deal with your account(s) or run any other services we provide to you
  • Consider any applications made by you
  • Carry out credit checks and to obtain and provide credit references
  • Undertake statistical analysis, to help evaluate the future needs of our members and to help manage our business
  • Send you statements, new terms and conditions (including changes to this privacy statement), information about changes to the way your account(s) operate and notification of our annual general meeting

For our legitimate interests, to:

  • Recover any debts owed to us

With your consent, to:

  • Maintain our relationship with you including marketing and market research (if you provide consent)

Sharing your personal information

We will disclose information outside the Credit Union to:

  • Third parties to help us confirm your identity to comply with money laundering legislation
  • Credit reference agencies and debt recovery agents who may check the information against other databases-private and public-to which they have access to
  • Any authorities if compelled to do so by law (e.eg. to HM Revenue & Customs to fulfil tax compliance obligations)
  • Fraud prevention agencies to help prevent crime or where we suspect fraud
  • Any persons, including, but not limited to, insurers, who provide a service or benefits to you or for us in connection with your account(s)
  • Our suppliers in order for them to provide services to us and/ or to you on our behalf
  • Anyone in connection with a reorganisation or merger of the Credit Union’s business
  • Other parties for marketing purposes (if you provide consent)

Where we send your information

While countries in the European Economic Area all ensure rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that may not be quite so rigorous and do not provide the same quality of legal protection and rights when it comes to your personal information.

The Credit Union does not directly send information to any country outside of the European Economic Area, however, any party receiving personal data may also process, transfer and share it for the purposes set out above and in limited circumstances this may involve sending your information to countries where data protection laws do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.

For example, when complying with international tax regulations we may be required to report personal information to the HM Revenue and Customs which may transfer that information to tax authorities in countries where you or a connected person may be tax resident.

Retaining your information

The Credit Union will need to hold your information for various lengths of time depending on what we use your data for. In many cases we will hold this information for a period after you have left the Credit Union.

If you would like a copy of our Retention Policy please contact us on 01706 298966.

Credit Reference Agencies

In order to process your application, we will perform credit and identity checks on you with one or more credit reference agencies (“CRAs”). Where you take banking services from us we may also make periodic searches at CRAs to manage your account with us.

To do this, we will supply your personal information to CRAs and they will give us information about you. This will include information from your credit application and about your financial situation and financial history. CRAs will supply to us both public (including the electoral register) and shared credit, financial situation and financial history information and fraud prevention information.

We will use this information to:

  • Assess your creditworthiness and whether you can afford to take the product;
  • Verify the accuracy of the data you have provided to us;
  • Prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering;
  • Manage your account(s);
  • Trace and recover debts; and
  • Ensure any offers provided to you are appropriate to your circumstances.

We will continue to exchange information about you with CRAs while you have a relationship with us. We will also inform the CRAs about your settled accounts. If you borrow and do not repay in full and on time, CRAs will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs.

When CRAs receive a search from us they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.

If you are making a joint application, or tell us that you have a spouse or financial associate, we will link your records together, so you should make sure you discuss this with them, and share with them this information, before lodging the application. CRAs will also link your records together and these links will remain on your and their files until such time as you or your partner successfully files for a disassociation with the CRAs to break that link.

Our CRA partner is TransUnion, for more information about TransUnion’s activities you can read their Privacy Notice here https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice.

The identities of the 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 on any of these three links:

Your Rights

Your rights under data protection regulations are:

  • The right to access
  • The right of rectification
  • The right to erasure
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to data portability
  • The right to object to data processing
  • The rights related to automating decision-making and profiling
  • The right to withdraw consent
  • The right to complain to The Information Commissioner’s Office

Your Rights Explained

Right to Access

You have the right to access your personal data and details of the purposes of why we process your data. Providing the rights and freedom of others are not affected, we will supply a copy to you of the personal data that we hold for you.

The Right to Rectification

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you corrected and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete data about you completed.

The Right to Erasure

In some circumstances you have the right to erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include:

  • The personal data is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was originally processed
  • You withdraw consent you previously provided to process the information
  • You object to the processing under certain rules of data protection law
  • The processing is for marketing purposes
  • The personal data was unlawfully processed

However you may not erase this data where we need it to meet a legal obligation or where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

The Right to Restrict Processing

In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are:

  • You contest the accuracy of your personal information
  • Processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure
  • We no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims: and
  • You have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data.

We will only otherwise process it:

  • With your consent
  • For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims: or
  • For the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person

The Right to Object to Processing

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the data is necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party.

If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate gorunds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.

The Right to Data Portability

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

  • Consent: or
  • That the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you

You have the right to receive your personal data from us in a commonly used and machine-readable format or instruct us to send this data to another organisation. This right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

Rights Related to Automatic Processing

This credit union does not currently use an automated decision making process for processing members’ loans.

Right to Withdraw Consent

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing prior to the withdrawal.

The Right to Complain to The Information Commissioner’s Office

If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office which is responsible for data protection in the UK. You can contact them by:

  • Going to their website at https://ico.org.uk
  • Phone on 03031231113
  • Post to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF

Contact us About Your Rights

If you require any further information about how your rights apply to your membership of our credit union or to make a request under your rights you can contact us at info@metromoneywise.co.uk or phone 01706 298966. We will aim to respond to your request within one month or provide an explanation of the reason for our delay.

Contact Details for Metro Moneywise Credit Union

Name: Diane Edge

Address: Metro Moneywise Credit Union Ltd, Suite F7.9-F7-11, Globe House, Moss Bridge Road, Rochdale, OL16 5EB

Phone: 01706 298966

Email etc: diane@metromoneywise.co.uk

Changes to this privacy policy

We can update this Privacy Policy at any time and ideally you should check it regularly on our website for updates. We won’t alert you for every small change, but if there are any important changes to the Policy or how we use your information we will let you know and where appropriate ask for your consent.