Privacy Policy

This policy applies to AFH Finance Pty Ltd, ABN 30 633 575 005. We are a finance broker based in Melbourne. We arrange car, personal and business finance. We are not a lender and we do not provide home loans.

We operate as Australian Credit Representative number 548852 under Access Lending Group Pty Ltd, Australian Credit Licence 531308.

We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Australian Privacy Principles and, where credit reporting information is involved, Part IIIA of that Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code.

The information we collect depends on what you ask us to do. It usually includes:

Identity and contact details

• Name, date of birth, residential address and how long you have lived there
• Mobile number and email address
• Residency or visa status, and visa expiry where relevant
• Identity documents such as a driver licence or passport, where a lender requires them

Financial and credit information

• Employment type, employer and income
• Expenses, existing loans, credit cards and other commitments
• Assets, deposit and trade-in details
• Your description of your credit history, including defaults and past payday loans
• Credit reporting information, where you authorise us to obtain it
• Bank statements, payslips and similar documents you provide to support an application

Details of what you want to finance

• The vehicle, caravan, equipment or purpose, the amount and the loan term
• For business finance, your ABN, entity structure, GST registration and turnover

Technical information

• IP address, device and browser type, pages viewed and the page you arrived from
• Advertising identifiers where you reached us through an ad

We collect information directly from you wherever we can. That includes our online loan calculator and enquiry forms, our secure online application at afhfinance.com.au/apply, phone calls, email, SMS and messages you send us on social media.

We also collect information about you from other sources where it is reasonably necessary, including credit reporting bodies, lenders you have applied to through us, your employer or accountant where you have asked them to confirm something, dealers or suppliers involved in your purchase, and publicly available sources such as the ASIC and ABN registers for business applications.

If someone else gives us your details, for example a co-borrower, guarantor or referrer, we assume they have your permission to do so. You can contact us at any time to find out what we hold.

We collect your information so we can:

• Work out which lenders on our panel are likely to suit your situation
• Give you indicative rates and repayments
• Contact you about your enquiry by phone, SMS or email
• Check it's you before you open your online application, by sending a one-time code to the email or mobile you gave us
• Prepare, submit and settle a credit application on your behalf
• Meet our responsible lending and other obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and our licensee's requirements
• Verify your identity and meet anti-money laundering obligations where they apply
• Respond to complaints and improve our service
• Send you marketing, if you have opted in

Decisions made by computer. Our calculator uses a computer program to compare your answers with lenders' published criteria. It decides which lenders to show you and whether to offer you a referral to a partner, such as Lead Market or Australian Lending Centre, as well as or instead of a call from our brokers. It uses the loan you asked about, your income and employment, residency, living situation, your description of your credit history and your existing commitments. A referral only happens if you agree, and a broker reviews every application before anything is lodged with a lender. If you would like a person to look at your situation, call us on 03 7031 6881.

We disclose your information to:

• Lenders and their agents on our panel, so they can assess your application. We send a lender only what it needs to assess you.
• Access Lending Group Pty Ltd, our licensee and aggregator, which holds our accreditation and oversees our compliance.
• Credit reporting bodies, where you have authorised a credit check.
• Insurers, valuers, dealers and suppliers involved in the asset you are financing.
• Service providers who host or run our systems, including our website host, form provider, database and CRM providers, email and SMS providers.
• Your representatives, such as an accountant, broker, solicitor or guarantor, where you have asked us to.
• Regulators, courts or law enforcement, where we are required or authorised by law.

We require our service providers to protect your information and to use it only for the purpose we engaged them for.

Referrals to Lead Market. If your enquiry doesn't fit our lenders, we may offer to refer you to Lead Market, operated by Credit Sense Pty Ltd, which connects applicants with specialist lenders. If you agree, we share your name, contact details, date of birth and the answers you gave us so specialist lenders can contact you. Lead Market will ask you to securely share your bank statements, and you may be offered a different loan type, amount or lender to the one you asked for. You don't have to agree, and saying no doesn't affect our service to you. We may receive a fee for the referral. Lead Market's handling of your information is covered by its own privacy policy.

Referrals to other lending partners. For debt consolidation enquiries, or if we can't help you ourselves, we may offer to refer you to a lending partner, currently Australian Lending Centre Pty Ltd (Australian Credit Licence 389119), for debt consolidation and personal loans. We only do this if you agree, either by ticking the consent box in our online calculator or on a call, and we confirm by email who we referred you to. We share your name, contact details, the loan you asked about and the financial details you gave us, so the partner can contact you. You don't have to agree, and saying no doesn't affect our service to you. We may receive a fee for the referral. Our partner's handling of your information is covered by its own privacy policy.

With your consent, we may obtain a credit report about you from a credit reporting body to help assess your options. The main credit reporting bodies in Australia are Equifax, Experian and illion. Each has its own privacy policy explaining how it handles credit reporting information, and each must give you access to your credit report.

You have the right to ask a credit reporting body not to use your credit reporting information for pre-screening direct marketing, and to ask it to place a ban on your information if you believe you have been or are likely to be a victim of fraud.

We may disclose your credit information to lenders as part of an application, and we hold the credit information we receive under Part IIIA of the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code.

If you opt in, we may send you rate updates, product information and offers by email or SMS. Every marketing message includes a way to unsubscribe. You can also opt out at any time by emailing admin@afhfinance.com.au, replying STOP to an SMS or using the Stop these emails link in our emails. We action opt-outs within five business days.

Opting out of marketing does not stop us contacting you about an enquiry or application you have already started.

Our website and calculator use cookies and similar technologies to make the site work, remember your progress through the calculator and measure how our advertising performs.

We use the Meta pixel, supplied by Meta Platforms, to understand which ads lead to enquiries. The pixel records events such as a page view, a calculator start and a completed enquiry. We do not send Meta the financial details you enter into the calculator.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the calculator may not work properly if you do. You can also manage ad personalisation in your Meta account settings and through your device's advertising controls.

Your online application and any documents you upload are stored in Sydney, Australia. Some of the service providers we use for our website, forms, email, advertising and automation store or process data outside Australia: for example Meta (advertising measurement), Formspree (website forms) and GitHub (which hosts our calculator page) in the United States, and Make (which moves enquiry and email data between our systems) in the European Union. Microsoft, which provides our email, may also process data overseas. Where that happens, we take reasonable steps to make sure your information is handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles.

We do not otherwise routinely disclose your information to overseas recipients. Australian lenders on our panel hold and assess your application in Australia.

We hold your information in access-controlled electronic systems and, where we hold paper records, in secured storage. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, including access controls, encryption in transit and limiting who inside our business can see your file.

No system is completely secure. If a data breach happens that is likely to cause you serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

We keep credit-related records for at least seven years after our engagement with you ends, because credit legislation requires it. When we no longer need information and are not required to keep it, we destroy or de-identify it.

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is wrong, out of date or incomplete. Email admin@afhfinance.com.au and tell us what you need.

We will ask you to verify your identity. We aim to respond within 30 days. Access is free, although we may charge a reasonable fee for the cost of supplying a large or complex request. If we refuse access or refuse to correct something, we will tell you why in writing and explain how to complain.

If you think we have mishandled your personal or credit information, please tell us first so we can fix it. Email admin@afhfinance.com.au or call 03 7031 6881. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and aim to resolve it within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can take your complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, the external dispute resolution scheme our licensee belongs to. AFCA's decisions are free to consumers and binding on us.

You can also complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on 1300 363 992 or at oaic.gov.au.

We review this policy from time to time and may update it. The current version is always on this page, with the date it was last updated shown at the top. If we make a significant change, we will make that clear on our website.