Privacy Policy

People First is the way we do business

At Heritage, we do things a little differently to the banks. For starters, we’re owned by members, not shareholders, so our focus is always on putting ‘People first’ by providing member benefits - in the form of better rates and better service - rather than maximising profits. In everything we do, we put ‘People first’. We actively encourage people to come in to our branches. We keep them open for longer hours. We don’t turn our backs on less-populated and rural areas. And unlike the banks, we’re opening new branches all the time, instead of closing them.

Heritage Building Society Privacy Policy - Our Privacy Commitment

Heritage Building Society Limited ABN 32 087 652 024, AFS Licence No. 240984 (also referred to as “we”, “our” or “us” in this Privacy Policy) considers the protection and maintenance of your personal information to be of the utmost importance. We take very seriously the ongoing trust that you place in us to protect your personal information.

When handling your personal information we are bound and committed to complying with the National Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988.

What does “personal information” mean?

Personal information is information that may identify you or by which your identity may be reasonably determined. Such personal information may include your name, address, other contact details, your date of birth, your financial details such as income, savings and lending history and expenses, credit reports from credit reporting agencies, employment details and tax file number.

Why do we collect your personal information?

We will only ask for personal information relevant to our business relationship with you.

We will tell you the main reasons for asking for your personal information when we seek it from you. If you do not provide some personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the products or services you want.

The main reasons why we will seek personal information from you are:

• to check your eligibility for or to provide you with financial products or services;
• to assist you with your inquiries or concerns;
• to verify your identity and undertake customer due diligence;
• to consider whether or not we have other services or products which may possibly meet your needs, and to notify you about these;
• for research, training, product development, risk assessment, risk modelling and marketing requirements; and
• for any other purpose required or authorised by law.

We may also ask for your personal information because we are obliged to collect it for legal purposes under the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988 and the new Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006. These Acts require us to ask you for information to check your identity (for instance, by referring to your driver’s licence, birth certificate or passport). We will not use any information collected under these Acts for any other purpose.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect most personal information directly from you. We may do this when you apply for membership, complete an application for one of our products and services, deal with us over the telephone, send us a letter, visit our web site or when you visit our branches (including community and mini-branches).

From time to time there may also be occasions (such as where we need to verify your identity, undertake customer due diligence, prevent or detect money laundering or terrorist financing and where we are required or authorised by law) when we need to obtain personal information about you from a third party. These parties may include banks, financial advisers, family members, credit reporting agencies, government authorities and publicly available sources of information.

When you ring our Contact Centre, we may also monitor and/or record telephone calls for the purpose of staff training and to verify statements made during the phone call.

Our website and Heritage on-line internet banking do not use cookies to identify or monitor visitors to the site.

Do we ever disclose your personal information to third parties?

We may disclose your personal information to third parties where they help us with our business, or you request us or consent to do so. Where your personal information is disclosed to third parties, we will seek to ensure that the information is held, used or disclosed consistently with the National Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988.

Types of third parties include:

• parties involved in providing, managing or administering your products or services such as third party suppliers, printers, postal services, authorised representatives and our legal, tax, audit and accountancy advisers;
• parties maintaining, reviewing and developing our business systems, procedures and infrastructure including testing or upgrading our computer systems;
• alliance partners, for example, where you have a cobranded product such as the Heritage Visa credit card;
• your advisers which may include lawyers, mortgage brokers, financial advisers, executors, administrators, trustees or attorneys;
• credit reporting agencies and debt collecting agencies;
• lenders mortgage insurers (if insurance is required because the amount you borrow exceeds a certain percentage of the property’s value is insured by the Society);
• parties involved in what is known as “securitisation”, under which we sell a pool of home loans. These third parties include trustees of securitisation arrangements, investors and their advisers; and
• parties involved in the payments system including financial institutions, merchants and payment organisations.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties in circumstances where:

• we must fulfil our legal obligations (for example, disclosure to Australian (and international) enforcement bodies such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), Centrelink or the Courts);
• it is in the public interest (that is, to protect our interests or where we have a duty to the public to disclose, or where it is necessary in proceedings before a court or tribunal) and where a crime or fraud is committed or is suspected; or
• it can be reasonably inferred from the circumstances that you consent to your personal information being disclosed to a third party.

We may also send your personal information outside Australia where, for example:

• you have requested or consented that we send your personal information;
• we outsource a function or service to an overseas contractor with whom we have a contractual arrangement; and
• it is necessary to investigate or facilitate a transaction on your behalf.

We will not send your personal information outside Australia unless it is authorised by law and we are satisfied that the recipient of the personal information has adequate data protection arrangements in place.

How do we protect your personal information?

We take all reasonable precautions to protect your personal information, whether it is stored in hard copy or electronic form from loss, unauthorised access, modification and unauthorised disclosure. Your personal information is only accessible by you and by those who are authorised to access it. Our employees and third parties who we deal with are bound by confidentiality obligations.

Hard copy documents are secured on our premises and at archive sites by locks and security systems. Whenever possible, hard copy documents are returned to you and not kept on our premises.

Electronic data is protected by up-to-date computer and network security systems with appropriate firewalls, encryption technology, virus software and access passwords.

We also seek to ensure that confidential face-to-face discussions between you and us occur in a secure environment.

Depending on any legal obligations to retain your personal information for a certain period of time, if we do not require your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy it in a secure manner or by removing identifying features from it.

Is the Heritage website and Heritage on-line secure?

We appreciate that you may have concerns in relation to the confidentiality and security of your personal information on the internet. Therefore, we have implemented systems to ensure that your personal information is secure and confidential when you access our website or Heritage on-line internet banking.

When we collect your personal information over the internet, it proceeds via our secure server utilising encryption technology. This helps to protect against unauthorised access to your personal information over the Internet. Your stored personal information is also protected from unauthorised access through the use of multiple firewalls, secure passwords and sign-in processes. Further information about the security systems we employ to protect your personal information is available at www.heritageonline.com.au.

While our website and Heritage on-line internet banking rely on the highest levels of technology to ensure maximum security, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure.

To assist us in protecting your personal information, we expect you to keep confidential your access passwords at all times, to destroy any documentation we send to you containing your access passwords and to ensure that you log out properly when you leave your computer and take appropriate steps to ensure security of your information.

How can you access or update your personal information?

We maintain the quality of your personal information by taking reasonable steps to ensure that the information collected, used and disclosed is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

You may access your personal information at any time by visiting any of our branches, by telephoning our Contact Centre on 13 14 22 or on-line at www.heritageonline.com.au. In the event that you make a request to access personal information that has been archived, we may charge you a fee. The fee will be discussed with you prior to us actioning your request. We are unable to give you access to your personal information if we are prevented by law or if access would reveal personal information of another person.

You may also update your personal information at any time by visiting any of our branches, by telephoning our Contact Centre on 13 14 22 or on-line at www.heritageonline.com.au. We encourage you to advise us immediately if you change your contact details (such as your phone number or address).

Do we ever change our Privacy Policy and Privacy Commitment?

From time to time, we may need to review our Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy at any time and to notify you by posting an updated version on our website at www.heritageonline.com.au.

Do you have any concerns or questions about our Privacy Policy or Privacy Commitment?

If you have any concerns or questions about our Privacy Policy, or the way in which we manage your personal information, you may contact us by:

You may also obtain further information about privacy (including general privacy information, answers to frequently asked questions and links to the 10 National Privacy Principles) on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website at www.privacy.gov.au. Alternatively, you may write to The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, GPO Box 5218, Sydney, New South Wales, 2001.