netwealth - Privacy policy

1. About Netwealth

Netwealth Group Limited and its subsidiaries (the Group) provide superannuation, investment, financial planning and advice and other services. The Group includes Netwealth Investments Limited, Bridgeport Financial Services and Pathway Licensee Services. This document applies to all subsidiaries of the Group (Netwealth, we, us, our).

Your privacy is important to us. This policy explains how we handle, store and use your personal information. We may update this policy from time to time, so recommend that you regularly review this policy from the links provided on our website (located at the bottom of each web page).

This policy covers how we will handle all personal information provided to us. For the removal of doubt this includes how we will handle the personal information of AFS Licensees and their representatives.

2. Collection of personal information

2.1 What personal information we collect

We will collect information from you to provide you with services and products. This includes, collecting information when you:

Use our website – we will collect information about your preferences, your location, third party websites you visit and your IP address. This includes the use of cookies. For more information on how we manage cookies, please see our information on cookies (located at the bottom of each web page).
Use our mobile application (Netwealth app) – we will collect information about your preferences, device(s) used to access the app and usage of app features.
Contact us – we will require information to verify who you are, your name, address, date of birth and other personal information.
Wish to provide your representatives or clients products and services offered by us (where you are an AFS Licensee or representative) – we will require information to verify who you are, your bank details and other credentials as required by us.
Open one or more of our products or services – we will require your personal information, along with other information to enable us to offer that product, such as tax information, residency status, bank account details and occupation status.
Utilise one or more of our optional services, such as nominating beneficiaries or requesting particular investment options – we will request details to be able to provide these services, such as the beneficiary details, and specific authorisations around the investment option.
Request additional products or services provided by a third party – such as a request for insurance through your superannuation, in which case we will request health information from you.
Ask Bridgeport Financial Services for advice – we will request personal information about your financial circumstances, needs and objectives to assess your needs and make recommendations to you.
Sensitive information – the collection of sensitive information is restricted by the Privacy Act. This includes such as information about your ethnicity, health, religion or criminal record. If we need this type of information, we will ask for your permission, except where otherwise permitted by law.

2.2 How we collect personal information

Most of the personal information we collect will be directly from you when you submit the application form or when you talk to us in person or over the phone.

Sometimes, we collect information about you from other parties without your direct involvement, such as:

Services providers, such as your insurer
Advisers
Family members or your appointed agent
Regulators and government agencies, such as the Australian Tax Office
Employers
Brokers
Agents

2.3 What if you do not provide us with the information that we request?

You are not required to give us the information that we request. However, if you do not provide us with the information, or provide us inaccurate information, it may:

Prevent us from being able to offer you with products and services
Prevent us from to provide you information on your products and services if we are unable to verify your identity
Cause delays in processing your request(s)
Impact the tax treatment on your account
Affect your eligibility for certain insurance cover
Impact the quality of the advice that we provide you through Bridgeport Financial Services

3. Use of personal information

3.1 How we handle your information

We handle your personal information carefully. We collect and hold your personal information for the purposes of:

Verifying your identity
Assessing your application for a product or service
Providing you advice, services and product updates
Providing you with products and services
Enabling us to contact you and to manage our relationship with you
Providing information to us about our products and services, the way they are utilised and managed
Improving our service to you
Facilitating the provision of services to you from third parties, where you have requested the use of those services
Comply with laws, and assist government or law enforcement agencies
Managing risks, fraud and security
Marketing our products and services to you*

*If you do not want to receive direct marketing messages, you must inform us. You can do this by contacting us on Freecall 1800 888 223 (within Australia)

From time to time we may also combine information that we have about you with other data we hold or have collected from a third party. This information helps us understand trends in the industry as a whole or in particular segments.

We may also collect, use and exchange your information for other reasons where the law allows or requires us to do so.

4. Sharing of personal information

4.1 Sharing your information with third parties

We share your information with other entities within the Group and we also share your information with third parties.

These third parties may include:

AFS Licensees, their representatives and other third parties who you may engage to act on your behalf, such as your parent (if you are under 18), guardian or Power of Attorney;
Other financial services organisations, including banks, insurance companies, superannuation funds, stock brokers, custodians and fund managers;
Complaint resolution schemes, for example, Financial Ombudsman Services, Superannuation Complaints Tribunal;
Agents of listed company who are authorised to collect shareholding information;
Entities requesting your personal information with a valid court order;
Domestic and foreign regulators, government bodies and law enforcement agencies;
Organisations that help identify illegal activities and prevent fraud;
Our contractors and external service providers, for example, auditors, mail house, marketing, printers and technology service providers;
Your employer and/or your employer’s nominated financial planner;
Other people (such as family members) that are linked on your account; and
Third parties engaged by your Nominated Financial Adviser (such as provision of your data to your Nominated Financial Adviser’s client relationship management system).

4.2 Sending information overseas

The data centres of some organisations that we share information with may be located overseas, which means your personal information may be stored or accessed in overseas countries, including Canada, Malaysia, United Kingdom and United States. In addition, we may share some information of financial advisers with fund managers to administer certain financial products.

5. Accessing and updating your information

5.1 How you can access your personal information

You can request the access to your personal information held by us. In most cases, we will grant you the access after receiving sufficient information to verify your identity. Access requests may be made in writing, by email or by telephone using the contact details in the Contact us section below.

We do not charge a fee to you when your request a copy of your personal information and generally will not charge you for the provision of your personal information. However, if the request is likely to take us a longer period of time to produce, we will let you know the charge, so you can choose if you want to go ahead. The fee will be an hourly rate to cover the expense of providing you with the data and you will need to make payment before we start.

Information will generally be provided within 30 days of successful verification of your identity and payment of any charge to provide the information (if applicable).

5.2 Can we refuse to provide you with information?

In some cases, we can refuse to provide you with access to information or provide you with access to only some information. This could occur where the information requested is commercially sensitive or would breach the privacy of another person. Where we cannot provide you with information we will write to you to provide an explanation of decision.

5.3 Updating your information

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, up to date, complete and relevant. If you believe your personal information requires update, you can contact us over the phone or complete the update yourself through our online services.

6. Keeping your information secure

6.1 Protecting your information

We may hold your personal information in secure data centres or paper-based files and have implemented a range of physical and electronic security measures to protect your personal information from misuse, unauthorised access and improper disclosure. We also monitor and maintain our security system to ensure that our online services are secure and your personal information is protected appropriately.

To protect privacy, we encourage you to keep passwords and access codes confidential and secure at all times. This means that you should not disclose your password or access codes to others and should contact us immediately if you believe that your password or access codes may have been disclosed to another person or if you would like to change your password.

6.2 Destroying or de-identifying your information

We try to ensure that we only keep personal information only for the period we need it. When we no longer require your personal information we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify the data securely.

7. Making a privacy complaint

7.1 How to make a complaint

If you are not happy with the way we handle your personal information, please contact us. We take complaints seriously and will try to resolve your concern according to our Complaints Handling and Compensation Policy.

We aim to respond to your complaint as soon as possible, and will provide you with a final response to your complaint within 45 days of receiving the complaint. If we cannot respond in this time, we will provide you with reasons why and what we are doing to try to resolve your complaint.

7.2 Other options if you are not satisfied with our response

If you are not satisfied with the response we provided to your complaint, you can approach the following free and independent dispute resolution services.

Under the Privacy Act you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about the way we handle your personal information:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
Phone 1300 363 992
www.oaic.gov.au

The Financial Ombudsman Service can consider most complaints involving financial services provider:

Financial Ombudsman Service
GPO Box 3
Melbourne VIC 3001
Phone 1800 367 287
www.fos.org.au

For complaints about superannuation, you can contact the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal:

Superannuation Complaints Tribunal
Locked Bag 3060
Melbourne VIC 3001
Phone 1300 884 114
www.sct.gov.au

8. Contact us

If you wish to contact us about the privacy related matters, you may contact us by email, telephone or in writing to:

The Privacy Officer
Netwealth Group Limited
PO Box 336
South Melbourne VIC 3205

Freecall 1800 888 223 (within Australia)
Phone 03 9655 1300
Email privacy@netwealth.com.au

Privacy policy