Privacy Policy

We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control personal information.

Here’s how we respect that:

At Thorn Group Financial Services (Thorn), we are committed to protecting your personal information. We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control personal information. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. This privacy statement sets out Thorn’s policies relating to the collection and use of your personal information.

Personal Information

In this policy, “personal information” means the same as it does in the Privacy Act 1993 (“Privacy Act”). In general terms, this includes any information that can be used to personally identify you. This may include (but is not limited to) your name, age, gender, address, contact details (including phone numbers and email addresses) images of you, your biometric data and financial information, including your payment information. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, then the information is considered personal information.

How we collect information about you

We collect personal information about you when you:

• Apply for a loan (or commence the process for applying for a loan) either through our branches or in any one of our branches.
• visit one of Thorn’s websites (thornfinance.co.nz, www.dtr.co.nz).
• interact with us on social media
• contact us with queries or feedback
• enter competitions or other promotions that we facilitate
• subscribe to receive marketing communications from us

You agree that we may also collect personal information from third parties, including but not limited to credit reporting agencies, your present or former creditors and insurance companies, identification service providers, your referees, government agencies, your past and present employers and owners, occupiers or neighbours of any address reasonably believed to be your current or recent address. Without limiting the foregoing, if you apply for a loan or request a quote for the cost of credit, you authorise us to obtain credit information about you from a credit reporter to confirm your identity, verify your current credit obligations, help us assess your ability to meet repayment obligations and make credit decisions, and to provide you with quotes for the cost of credit.

We may also collect other information which may not necessarily be personal information such as your IP address, cookies and information about your browser and operating system.

You can choose to withhold personal information, but this may restrict the products we can supply to you.

How we use information we collect

The primary purpose for which we collect information about you is to enable us to perform our business activities and to provide the best possible customer service.

We collect, hold and use personal information for the following purpose:

• to process, assess and acknowledge any request for finance you have made with us and to provide you with a quotation for the cost of credit
• for the management, assessment or enforcement of any finance agreements you have with us
• to assess your creditworthiness and financial position from time to time including reviewing and managing your agreement, collecting or recovering any payments or other amounts from you, monitoring your compliance and to better service you
• to establish and verify your identity
• to enforce our rights, including to collect outstanding debt from you
• to verify your identity and monitor and screen accounts as required from time to time by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009
• to provide you with information about us or our services
• to market our products including future products which we believe may be of interest to you including email, unless you tell us not to as detailed below under “Marketing and Opting Out” (our marketing activities may involve providing your personal information to our marketing agencies (see “Disclosure of Personal Information” below) and/or sharing data with social media platforms such as Facebook to ensure we provide you with the most relevant information about our services)
• to conduct promotions
• to train our staff, monitor and maintain our systems and networks
• to notify a credit reporting agency of your repayment history and account details, if you default in any payment or breach any contract or arrangement with us
• to comply with our legal obligations and assisting government and law enforcement agencies or regulators.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We may disclose your personal information to third parties as we consider appropriate including but not limited to:

• any trading banks, finance company, credit union, insurance company or other financial institution
• any credit reporting or identify verification service or agency (including but not limited to Equifax, Centrix and illion)
• any government agency (including but not limited to Ministry of Justice, Work and Income New Zealand, Department of Corrections, Inland Revenue Department, NZ Transport Agency, Housing New Zealand, NZ Police)
• Employers – both past and present
• Referees
• Owners, occupiers or neighbours of any address reasonably believed to be your current or recent address
• Debt recovery agencies
• our agents or service providers like debt collection agencies, introducers, professional advisers, direct debit companies, private investigators, marketing agencies and market research and data analysis providers, mailing houses, call centre operators and technology service providers

We require any third party to protect your information against unauthorised use or disclosure.

We may also disclose your credit information, including account information, default information, repayment history (including whether payments are made on time), the fact that you have applied for a loan or sought a quotation for the cost of credit, and identification information to credit reporting agencies. Information disclosed by us to credit reporting agencies may be listed in their systems, used by them to provide credit reporting services or other information services, and supplied to their customer who use their services to make credit decisions about you or any applicable organisation you are representing. Credit Reporters will hold your personal information on their terms and treat your information in accordance with their own privacy policies. Credit Reporters are subject to specific requirements in relation to credit information they hold. You can find out more about those obligations and your rights at https://www.privacy.org.nz/the-privacy-act-and-codes/codes-of-practice/credit-reporting-privacy-code/

We will not disclose any information about you without your agreement unless it is:

• For one of the purposes described in this policy
• Required by law or to enforce our rights
• We believe it necessary in order to provide you with a service which you have requested
• We suspect that your use of the website is in breach of the usual way websites are meant to be used
• To protect the rights or property of Thorn Finance, any Thorn Finance user or any member of the public
• To lessen a serious threat to a person’s health or safety
• Otherwise authorised by law

Cookies

Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer’s hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies.

Cookies provide us with aggregated information on how users interact on our website. Cookies do not personally identify you, but your browser.

Thorn Finance and our third-party vendors, including Google use cookies, separate to those required to maintain secure connections, to deliver advertisements that we believe are relevant to your interests using information we hold about you.

How to control cookie settings

If you do not wish to receive any cookies, you may manually adjust the cookie settings on your website browser. In some instances, this may mean you will not be able to take full advantage of parts of the Thorn Finance websites.

Marketing and Opting Out

We use personal information to provide you with information or advice about our existing and new products. We also use it to conduct promotions.

If at any stage, you no longer wish to receive these marketing communications you may unsubscribe by using the link in any promotional email or by contacting us at [email protected] or on 0800 645 008.

Links to other websites

We provide links to websites outside the Thorn Finance website. These linked sites are not under the control of Thorn Finance and we do not accept responsibility for the conduct of companies linked to our website. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, we advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of that website.

Protection of Personal Information

We will take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up to date. Your information is stored on secure servers that are protected in controlled facilities.

In addition, our employees and the contractors who provide services related to our information systems are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. However, we will not be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to your personal information.

You can also play an important role in keeping your personal information secure by maintaining the confidentiality of any password and accounts used on the Thorn Finance websites. Please notify us immediately if there is any unauthorised use of your account by any other Internet user or any other breach of security.

If you suspect any misuse or loss of, or unauthorised access to, your personal information, please let us know immediately.

How you can access your information

If you wish to access and/or correct information held about you, you can request this information by getting in touch with us by writing to Thorn Group Financial Services Limited at PO Box 204365, Highbrook, Manukau 2161 or by contacting us at [email protected] or on 0800 645 008.

We will try to respond to your request within 10 working days.

What to do if you have a complaint?

Thorn Finance complies with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1993, should you feel Thorn Finance has breached your rights under this Act please write to:

The Privacy Officer

Thorn Finance

PO Box 204365

Highbrook

Manukau 2161

Changes to the privacy policy

We will continuously review our Privacy Policy to ensure that it protects your privacy while supporting your user experience on the Thorn Finance website. We encourage you to keep visiting our Privacy Policy to see if any updates have been made.