1. Who are we?

We (Creditec Limited), are a credit broker authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 971164). We provide a credit matching platform that enables our partners to connect their customers to financial products and services such as credit card and loan offers. (“Our Partners” are firms who offer their customers the opportunity to search for such financial products and services, and we help them to do this through the technology we provide.) Our registered office is The Steam Mill Business Centre, Steam Mill Street, Chester, United Kingdom, CH3 5AN and our registered company number is 13700425 . We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office with registration number ZB288703.

2. Why do we have this privacy policy?

The purpose of this privacy policy is to give you a clear explanation about how we use the personal information we collect when our credit matching platform service is used to find a financial product or service. It is important that you read it in full to understand the information we collect, how we will use it and how you can access, update and delete your personal information. It should be read together with our Terms and Conditions.

If you click on a link that takes you to a third-party website that is not ours, for eg our Partner’s website or the provider of the financial product or service you decide to apply for, (“Provider”), we will not be responsible for how they use your personal information. You should read their privacy policy to understand how they may use your personal information. Other than the information in section 9 (“Who do we share your personal information with?”), this privacy policy only explains how we will process your personal information.

“Personal information” in this policy means any information that we collect that could identify you such as for e.g. your name, address and online identifiers like your IP address.

3. Our Service

When you express an interest in searching for a financial product or service through one of our Partners, they may share your personal information with us so that we can use our credit matching technology to find you relevant offers. We call this “Our Service.”

We are a data controller in relation to the personal information that we process, and we store this in a UK data centre.

We will share the personal information you have provided us on your application form with Equifax Limited who are a credit reference agency (“CRA”). A soft search will be carried out on you to enable us to check your identity and creditworthiness (ie how likely it is that you will be able to repay the credit) so that we can assess which lender(s) may be more suitable for your financial circumstances. A soft search will leave a ‘footprint’ on your credit file which will either be in our name or the lender or broker who carried it out. Only you will be able to see this, and it will not impact your credit score.

Depending on the information we receive from Equifax Limited and what type of financial product or service you are searching for, your personal information will also be shared with other members of our group, Comparitec Group Limited and may be also shared with HD Decisions Limited (an Experian business) in order to check your eligibility and pre-qualify you for the financial product or service you are looking for amongst each of their respective panel of Providers.

These third parties are separate data controllers when they receive this information, and they may process it for their legitimate interests to see whether they can provide you with the financial service or product you are looking for. For example, if you are enquiring about:

- A loan:

We will share your personal information within Comparitec Group Limited and its panel of lenders, together with other credit brokers who operate their own panel of lenders and brokers. They will carry out a loan eligibility assessment and make an automated decision about you such as a soft search. (Please see point 10 below for more information about this and what rights you may have as a result).

- A credit card:

We will share your personal information with Comparitec Group Limited who will check your eligibility by sharing the information you have given to us with our providers of pre-screening and eligibility checking services (HD Decisions - an Experian business, Madison CF UK Limited, trading as 118 118 Money and Capital One (Europe) plc) and certain members of our panel of credit card issuers, (who may then also contact credit reference agencies "CRAs"). This soft search will be in the name of Creditec and will only be visible to you. It will not affect your credit rating.

Pre-screening means our Providers use your information to carry out a soft search on you. This is a pre-application check of your credit record and will not have any impact on your credit rating. (Please see point 10 below for more information about this and what rights you may have as a result).

Our Providers will also use their internal databases, scoring methods and knowledge of acceptance criteria to determine your likelihood of being accepted, ("Eligibility Checks").

The results of your loan or credit card search and the details of any offers that you may be eligible for will be presented to you (either by our Partner or by us directly) in the form of a comparison table. You will then have the opportunity to choose which offers which are of interest to you and proceed with your application by clicking on the chosen link. By doing this, you will be directed to our Provider’s website with whom your personal information will be shared in order to complete your application. They will also carry out their own identification and validation checks including a full credit check, (also known as a "hard" search). This will be visible on your credit file to any other lender in the future.

Before completing and submitting any application on one of our Provider’s sites, you should read their privacy policy to satisfy yourself how they will process your personal information. We are not responsible for the way in which any of Our Providers may do this.

If any of our Providers are unable to help, you may be presented with an alternative option to make another search for a different financial service or product. If you choose to proceed, depending on what you are searching for, we will either share your personal information with that Provider and/or other members of the Comparitec Group so that they can assess whether or not they can help you.

We will stay in contact with you about your enquiry by sending you a servicing communication which will confirm your results, and/or explain any “next steps” using the contact details you have given to us.

4. Ways you can contact us

You can contact us at any time by using one of the methods listed below, if you wish to know more about how we use and store your personal information:

• Contact Us Form
• Complaints
• By post to the following address

Creditec Limited,
The Steam Mill Business Centre,
Steam Mill Street,
Chester,
CH3 5AN

5. How do we collect your personal information?

This is information specific to you such as, but not exclusively, your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, financial account information, online identifiers (i.e. IP address).

We collect your personal information in the following ways:

• when you complete an online form on either our website or on one of our Partners' websites which is then shared with us;
• when you contact us by email or any other means
• via automated technologies such as Cookies. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details
• technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns

6. What personal information do we collect?

To enable us to provide Our Service, we need to collect the following information:

• Identity information includes your first and last name, date of birth
• Contact information includes your email address and mobile telephone number
• Employment information includes your employment status
• General information includes your residential status, your marital status, and the number of dependants you may have
• Financial information depending upon the financial product or service you are seeking, this could include details of your bank account; a breakdown of your income and expenditure (including information about your debts); rent/mortgage repayments; child care costs (if relevant); the amount of money you are looking to borrow; the length and purpose of any loan; other loans that you may have recently taken out; the date you are paid each month, and whether you have a debit card.
• CRA information includes information about your financial status and eligibility for the products and services we offer
• Technical information includes your internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer (or device) to the internet; your browser; time zone setting; your operating system and platform; the source of your enquiry (for example Google, Facebook, Bing etc) and the device you are using. We also collect information about your visit to our website including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our website (including the date and time); page response times, download errors; length of visits to certain pages; page interaction information (such as scrolling; clicks and mouse-overs); methods used to browse away from the page, and, if you linked to our website from a search engine, the address of that search engine and the search term you used

Please note: it is your responsibility to check and ensure that any information you provide is correct, complete and accurate. If you fail to provide your personal information where requested, we will not be able to provide you with Our Service.

 

7. How do we use your personal information?

We can only use your personal information where it falls into one or more of the following categories:

• It is necessary to fulfil a contract we have with you;
• You have provided your consent;
• We have a legal or regulatory obligation to do so;
• It is necessary to carry out a task which is in the public interest;
• It is necessary to protect your vital interests, or
• It is in our legitimate interest to do so and it is not against your rights.

To help you understand the ways in which we will use your personal information, and which of the legal bases we are relying upon to do this, we have detailed the following uses. Note that we may process your personal information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information.

 

8. Who do we share your personal information with?

When you use Our Service, your personal information will be shared with the following third parties or categories:

• CRAs such as Equifax Limited: to check your identity and creditworthiness by carrying out a soft search on you so that we can assess which Provider(s) may be most suitable for your financial circumstances. As a result of this soft search, Equifax will record a footprint on your credit file that we have requested. This search footprint will be visible only to you and will not affect your credit score
• For more information about how Equifax may use your personal information, you can read the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice here, or you can ask Equifax for a copy. You can also read Equifax’s privacy policy here: https://www.equifax.co.uk/crain/.
• Other members of the Comparitec Group Limited in order to access their panel of lenders and brokers to help match you with the financial service or product you are looking for.
• Our Providers: to help you find the financial product or service you are using Our Service to find. If you are searching for a loan or credit card product, Our Providers comprise a panel of consumer credit lenders, brokers and credit card issuers.
• Our Partners and Providers: aggregated bureau data may be shared with our Partners and Providers to help them ensure that the products they offer (or provide access to): match the needs of their customers; are aimed at the correct target market; represent fair value and result in good customer outcomes.

• Third parties providing pre-screening and eligibility checking services: when you check your eligibility for a credit card through our site, we will share the information you provide to us with Our Providers of Pre-screening and Eligibility Checking services. Please note that the following privacy notices will apply to the relevant third party's handling of your data, alternatively details can be found on their individual websites:

  HD Decisions Limited (an Experian business) Privacy Notice (provider of eligibility scoring across a range of Our Partners and their products)

  Capital One (Europe) plc Privacy Notice (provider of eligibility scoring for Capital One products)

  Madison CF UK Limited trading as 118 118 Money Privacy Notice (provider of eligibility scoring for 118 products)

• Other companies who enable us to provide Our Service or who provide services to us, for example IT Service Providers (who provide for e.g. technology platforms or other IT services including data storage), and communication providers (who provide for e.g. email and text services for customer contact and marketing purposes)

 

These third parties help us to provide Our Services. In order that they can do this, we may need to let them process your personal information. We will make sure that they keep the information secure and in accordance with our instructions, the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 ("GDPR") and other UK privacy legislation.

We’ll also share your personal information when we have your consent, or where we are obliged to do so for a legal or regulatory reason, for e.g. to prevent or detect crime, for compliance monitoring or to enforce or apply our Terms & Conditions and other agreements.

Finally, we may also share your personal information with any third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal information in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

9. How long will we keep your personal information?

Unless we are required by law to keep your personal information for a different period of time, we will keep it for no longer than 12 months from the date you last used our service, or until you ask us to delete it.

10. Automated Decision Making

An automated decision is one where a computer or system is used to assess the information you provide to make a decision about you. We do not make automated decisions about you however, Our Providers may do this when we share your personal information with them so that they can make an assessment of your eligibility for Our Service. An example of this is the soft search that Our Providers will carry out upon you if you make an application for a loan or credit card with them.

(Note: a “soft” credit search helps Our Provider to decide whether or not they may be able to lend money to you. Unlike a “hard” credit search, a soft search is recorded on your credit file, but only you rather than any other lender will be able to see it. A soft search does not therefore affect your credit rating.)

As a result, you have the right to ask Our Providers that they do not make a final decision based solely on automated means. You can also object to the automated decision and ask that a person reviews it. If you ask us, we can tell you which of Our Providers has made an automated decision about you. To exercise this right, you will then need to contact Our Providers directly

11. Is your personal information transferred outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and/or the UK?

Although we do not routinely transfer personal information outside the UK, we may sometimes need to do this where any of our Partners or third-party suppliers are either based outside the EEA and/or the UK, or where they use data processors based outside the EEA and/or the UK. Where this is the case, we will make sure that they agree to: keep your personal information secure; apply the same levels of protection as we are required to apply to information held in the UK, and to use it only for the purpose of providing Our Service. We will do this by putting in place appropriate safeguards and protections as stated under UK law, for example using a data-transfer agreement incorporating certain standard model protection clauses.

12. Data security

When using this website, some information may be collected automatically using cookies or other similar technologies. The information that may be collected includes your IP address, operating system and browser type, in order for us to learn aggregate information. This is never used to identify any individual but does allow us to present you with a consistent experience when using our website. With your consent, we may also use cookies for advertising and marketing purposes.

You can disable delete or block cookies at any time on your device. If you wish to do this, you will need to use your internet browser settings as they each have their own way of allowing you to access and control these settings.

For more information about our use of cookies and how to disable them in your internet browser you can read our Cookie Policy here.

13. Your legal rights

• Right to Object -because you have asked Our Partner to help you find a financial product or service, we need to process the personal information that they provide to us to enable us to find the best product or service available amongst our Providers. You can object to this processing (including any profiling that is carried out) at any time by contacting us as detailed in Ways to contact us in section 4. We will action any request you make promptly, although this will mean that we will not be able to help you find the financial product or service that you asked us to search for.
• Right of Access – you can ask us whether we hold your personal information and if so you can access it by contacting us as detailed in section 4.
• Right to Erasure – if it is no longer necessary for us to hold your personal information, bearing in mind the reason why you provided it to us, you can ask us to delete it. If you ask us to do this, we’ll complete your request as soon as possible although this will mean that we will not be able to help you find the financial product or service that you asked us to search for
• Right to Rectification - if we hold inaccurate personal information, you can ask us to correct it and we’ll action your request promptly
• Right to restrict our use of your information - you can ask us to restrict our processing of your personal information if you think, for example, that the personal information you gave us is inaccurate
• Right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – we’ll try to resolve any complaint that you may have in relation to data protection issues. If you are not happy with our final response you have the right to have your complaint dealt with by the ICO. See section 16 - “Complaints and contact details of our data protection officer.”

14. Complaints and contact details for our data protection officer

We want you to be confident that we are handling your personal information responsibly and in line with good practice. If you are concerned that we are not doing this, you should contact us immediately. We will treat your concern seriously and work with you to try and resolve it.

Please address your correspondence to:

 

The Data Protection Officer

Creditec Limited

The Steam Mill Business Centre

Steam Mill Street

Chester

CH3 5AN

 

15. Changes to this policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page.

Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. However, if any significant change that we make affects the way that we are able to use your personal information (meaning that it would be unlawful for us to continue to use it), then we will do our best to communicate this to you

Last updated 14th October 2024