Privacy Policy

In this Privacy Policy "we", "our", and "us" refers to Avant Mutual Group Limited ABN 58 123 154 898, and each of its related entities (together the “Avant Group”) including Avant Insurance Limited ABN 82 003 707 471 AFSL 238765, The Doctors’ Health Fund Pty Limited ABN 68 001 417 527, Doctors Financial Services Pty Ltd ABN 56 610 510 328, Avant Foundation Trust ABN 27 179 743 817, Avant Law Pty Ltd ABN 63 136 429 153, Darjack Pty Limited ABN 88 129 476 295 trading as “Cgov”, MyPracticeManual Pty Ltd ABN 16 150 460 129 trading as Avant Practice Solutions, Avant Doctors’ Finance Pty Ltd (ACN 637 769 361) (Australian Credit Licence 526049) trading as Avant Finance, and Avant Doctors’ Finance Brokers Pty Ltd (ACN 640 406 784). We offer professional indemnity insurance, health insurance, life risk insurance, finance products and other products and services, including member services. We may maintain additional rules, practices and policies, which are consistent with this Privacy Policy.

We are committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information and to handling your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the “Privacy Act”), the Australian Privacy Principles and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Credit Reporting Code). In this Privacy Policy, a reference to personal information includes sensitive information as well as credit-related information.

This Privacy Policy explains how and why we collect, use, hold and disclose your personal information.

This Privacy Policy is current from May 2024.

From time to time we make changes to our policies, processes and systems. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes to how we handle your personal information. This Privacy Policy applies to you only to the extent that the collection and handling of your personal information by us is subject to the Privacy Act.

Personal information is information or an opinion (regardless of its accuracy or form) about an identifiable individual. The personal information collected and stored by us about you (and other people) may include:

• your name, residential and email address, date of birth, gender, contact details and any other information we may need to identify you, including publicly available information from public registers and social media;
• health information, details of claims, complaints, incidents and proceedings regarding you or others covered on your policy, your claims and insurance history and status;
• practice details, education details and occupation;
• if you are applying for finance or providing a guarantee, we may also collect the number and ages of your dependants and cohabitants, the length of time at your current address, your employment details and proof of earnings and expenses;
• credit-related information including your credit information and credit eligibility information (see the Schedule “Credit-Related Information” at the end of this Privacy Policy for further details regarding collection, holding, use and disclosure of credit-related information);
• account details, credit card and direct debit details;
• if you use our website or mobile applications, we may collect information about your location or activity, including IP address, telephone number and whether you have accessed third party sites, the date and time of visits, the pages that are viewed, information about the device used, and other user location information. We may collect some of this information using cookies.

When you apply for or we need to facilitate a specific product or service, we may also collect information from you related to that product or service.

You are not required to give us your personal information. However, we may not be able to provide you with the products or services that you request of us without your personal information. 

Collection of personal information from you

We collect your personal information from you in various ways, such as over the phone (including by way of recording telephone calls), in person at one of our offices, via email and over the internet if you transact with us online. We collect your personal information when you apply for products or services we offer, become a member or renew your membership, report an incident, complete questionnaires, have telephone conversations with us or otherwise communicate with us.

Collection of personal information regarding patients and other people

Where necessary, we may also collect your personal information from someone else, such as: 

• if you are a patient, your health practitioner; 
• if you are covered under one of our policies as a dependent, the policyholder; or 
• if you are named under one of our joint policies (e.g. a family policy) one of your joint policyholders. 

If you provide information to us about another person, then you are responsible for obtaining that person’s permission to disclose their personal information to us and telling the other person that you have provided information about them to us. You should also tell them who we are, that they may access their personal information, and that we will treat their personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. 

If you are a policyholder and there are other persons covered on your policy, then unless we are notified otherwise, we may disclose the personal information of all persons covered on the policy to you. Likewise, we may disclose your personal information to your joint policyholders and to any other person who you have authorised to have access to your policy. 

If you are a health practitioner, we recommend you check that your place of work has a privacy policy in place and a notice displayed which informs patients that they may, from time to time, pass on personal information about patients to us. 

Collection of sensitive information

If you apply for membership, for certain insurance products, for finance or other finance products or services, for services such as medico-legal advice, other legal advice or risk advice, or make a claim under a policy, we may need to collect sensitive information about you. In administering policies and providing products and services to you, we may also need to collect sensitive information about your patients if you are a health practitioner, or the other persons covered on your policy if you hold a policy with us. Depending on the policy, product or service, this sensitive information may include details about income, health, memberships in trade or professional associations or trade unions and medical issues, religious beliefs and criminal history. 

If we collect sensitive information about you, we do so in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Collection of your personal information from third parties

Whenever possible, we collect your personal information from you. However, there may be occasions when we collect personal information about you from someone else. For example, you may apply for a product or service through a broker, corporate group, association or financial adviser.   

We may also obtain information about you:

• from other insurers, for example, we need to obtain details of prior claims, and our related entities. We may also obtain information about you from medical providers, government bodies or other professional experts in order to provide you with a policy or assess or facilitate a claim you make;
• in relation to our finance products and services, from credit reporting bodies, government agencies, other credit providers, your employer, accountant, real estate agent or other referees, your co-loan applicants or co-borrowers, your guarantors/proposed guarantors, your agents and other representatives like your referrers, brokers, solicitors, conveyancers and settlement agents or other personal representatives. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available, such as from public registers or social media. Where we obtain credit eligibility information from a credit reporting body about you, we may also seek publicly available information and information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed. We may also use derived information from your usage and (where applicable) repayment of any account held with us or other credit providers associated with us.

Irrespective of the source of the information, we respect and protect the privacy of personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We will only use your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles and the Credit Reporting Code, including with respect to the purposes for which it is collected, to provide, administer and improve our products and services, and for marketing purposes. For example, if you apply for membership, insurance, finance or other products or services with us, we may collect and use your personal information: 

• to assess your application,
• in order to establishing your identity,
• to underwrite and price any policy, 
• to issue and administer any policy, 
• to provide you with finance or assist you with applying for finance with another lender,
• to manage any loan you have with us or assist you with a loan you have with another lender,
• to assess your creditworthiness, credit standing and credit history or credit capacity to determine your eligibility to be provided with finance, as well as assisting you to avoid defaulting on your credit obligations;
• for the preparation, signing, financial settlement and lodgement of registry instruments and other documents relevant to a land transaction,
• to provide assistance, legal advice and legal defence, 
• to provide risk management and education services, 
• to provide medico-legal and ethical advice,
• to investigate, assess and pay any claim made by or against you under your policy, 
• to contact you as necessary on issues relating to your insurance, your loan or any other of our products or services, 
• to manage our risk,
• to comply with our legal obligations including our obligations under law including the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth),
• to conduct research and statistical analysis,
• for processing your survey responses for the purpose(s) notified in the survey,
• to provide, administer and improve our service or product to you and otherwise manage our relationship with you,
• to provide marketing to you for our products and services including social media, and
• for any other purpose identified at the time of collecting your information.

We may exchange credit-related information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance (see the Schedule “Credit-Related Information” at the end of this Privacy Policy for further details regarding collection, holding, use and disclosure of credit-related information).  If you propose to be a guarantor, one of our checks may involve obtaining a credit report about you.

We also need to collect, use and store your personal information so that we can answer any questions you may have regarding our products or services. 

We may also de-identify your personal information so that de-identified information can be used for research and statistical analysis.

Personal information will only be handled for purposes notified to you, purposes that you would reasonably expect, any purpose that you consent to (including consent provided under this Privacy Policy) or as otherwise required, authorised, or permitted by law.

In providing and administering our insurance products and services, finance products and services or any other products and services, we may need to disclose your personal information to third parties including our distributors, agents and brokers, our insurers, other insurers and reinsurers, solicitors, accountants, auditors, professional advisers, actuaries, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law, hospitals, doctors or other health care providers or authorities who can verify health information provided by you and other ancillary providers, organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us or assist us in providing marketing to you, claims related providers (including assessors and investigators that help us with claims), debt collection agents and those involved in managing corporate risk or strategies.

In relation to our finance products and services, we may also disclose your personal information (including credit-related information) to the following types of entities:

• credit reporting bodies, including for a credit guarantee purpose;
• finance brokers, mortgage managers, and persons who assist us to provide our finance products to you;
• our service providers involved in helping us to assess credit applications, provide finance or to administer finance products, including our debt collectors and our legal advisers;
• any person or entity who represents you including financial consultants, accountants, lawyers, persons holding power of attorney, guardians, and advisers;
• any organisation providing verification of identity services (including online verification);
• any industry body, government authority, tribunal, dispute resolution bodies or courts;
• any organisation involved in lodging and/or registering a security property or interest including the Property Exchange Australia Limited (PEXA) and/or other electronic lodgement network operators for the purposes of lodging and/or registering dealings in land:
• any persons whom directly or indirectly provides or is considering to provide us with funding of any kind (including any securitisation arrangements) and any parties involved in any such funding arrangements including agents or advisers, trustees, ratings agencies, or businesses assisting us with funding for finance made available to you, or any entity that may have an interest in your finance or our business;
• any person where we are authorised or required to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) or by government and law enforcement agencies or regulators;
• real estate agents, valuers, and insurers (including mortgage insurers, title insurers, building insurers and other insurers whom may provide protection in connection with any security provided to us):
• other borrowers or guarantors (if more than one) or borrowers or prospective borrowers of any finance you guarantee or propose to guarantee;
• bodies that issue identification documents to help us check your identity;
• your referees, such as a current and prior employer, to verify information you have provided;
• any person considering acquiring an interest in our business or assets;
• other financial institutions – for example, to process a claim for mistaken payment; and
• any other person or entities we tell you that we may disclose personal information to when we collect your personal information;
• any person where you have provided us consent.

We may also disclose personal information to our related entities (this excludes sensitive information, except where it is in de-identified form, unless you have consented to disclosure to related entities).We may disclose information about you to outside contractors in connection with carrying out activities on our behalf, for example such contractors may include printing and postal services, statement production, marketing agencies, technology, information and infrastructure systems service providers, solicitors, legal practitioners, experts or debt collection and recovery agencies. We impose security and confidentiality requirements on how they handle your personal information. Outside contractors are required not to use information about you for any purpose except for those activities we have asked them to perform.

We may however use or disclose your personal information without being required to seek your additional consent:

• when it is disclosed or used for a purpose related to the purpose set out in this Privacy Policy and you would reasonably expect your personal information to be used or disclosed for such a purpose;
• if we reasonably believe that the use or disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious or imminent threat to an individual’s life, health or safety or to lessen or prevent a threat to public health or safety;
• if we have reason to suspect that unlawful activity has been, or is being, engaged in; or
• if it is required or authorised by law.

We may occasionally need to transfer or disclose your personal information to a foreign country. This may include (but is not limited to) the United Kingdom and the United States of America, to administer a claim or incident relating to your policy, provide you with products and services, operational activities or manage our relationship with you. For finance products and services, this may include disclosing your personal information (including credit-related information) to overseas entities based in India or other countries that provide support functions to us. If we disclose your personal information to entities that are located overseas, we assess whether appropriate data handling and security arrangements are in place. We may also store your personal information in cloud or other types of networked or electronic storage and will take reasonable steps to ensure its security.

You consent and acknowledge that disclosure to third party service providers located overseas may be required and should this be necessary either:

• we will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the recipient will not hold, use or disclose that information in a manner which is inconsistent with the Privacy Act and Australian Privacy Principles; or
• we have otherwise received your consent to such overseas disclosure.

We may also from time to time provide de-identified information to third parties for research and/or educational purposes.

It is our aim to provide you with a range of leading products and services offered by us and our related entities. To do this, unless you opt-out, you consent to our use of the information that you provide to us for market research purposes so we can better understand your needs. You consent to us providing you with information, marketing materials, and related publications by phone, text message, postal mail or email about products and services that we believe will be of interest to you, as well as access to offers and competitions. For example, we may contact you about products and services we think may be of interest to you even after you cease to have  a policy, product or service with us.

We may share your personal information on a confidential basis with our related entities so that they can also offer you products and services. Direct marketing will not contain any of your sensitive information.

We provide you with a choice to opt out of our marketing activities and will respect your request not to receive marketing material from us. If you do not wish to receive marketing material from us, we ask you to contact us at unsubscribe@avant.org.au or by following the opt out instructions provided in the marketing communication. You should inform us if you do not want your personal information to be used and disclosed for marketing purposes. We will implement your request as soon as we can and apologise if you do receive any materials during the intervening period.

We endeavour to keep personal information safe by taking reasonable precautions to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Our staff receive training and information on the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles. 

We keep your information so that we can continue to provide the products and services you have requested from us or as required.

We hold the personal information in physical and/or electronic form. Electronic data is stored on our systems and servers and /or on servers owned by third parties. We may use cloud storage to store personal information. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia.

Our websites use cookies from third parties such as Google to improve the online experience for our site visitors and for marketing purposes. A cookie is a small text file that our site may place on your computer as a tool to remember preferences. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser; however, this may affect the functionality of the website.

We use reports provided by Google Analytics and other third party services to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage. We analyse user activity on the website such as pages visited, search terms and time spent on site to help us gain insights about how we can improve the functionality and experience of the website for our site visitors. We also use information provided by third parties such as Google (including Google Analytics Remarketing cookies) and other third party services, for remarketing activities and to improve user experience.

Where you provide personal information to us through our website, we may connect such personal information with your IP address. Where you are identified, and this information is connected to insights we know about you, the use and disclosure of your personal information will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You can let us know if you do not wish to receive direct marketing at any time, please refer to the “Receiving marketing material from us” section of this Privacy Policy.

By using our websites, you consent to the processing of data about you by such third parties for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of cookies if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or in relation to Google Analytics using the opt-out service provided by Google or change your Google account privacy settings. 

It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date.  During the course of our relationship with you, we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed.  If you wish to make any changes to your personal information, you may contact us. 

If you wish to access personal information (including credit-related information) we hold about you, if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, or if you have a complaint or question about the privacy of your personal information, we ask that you contact us:

The Privacy Officer
Avant Mutual Group Limited
PO Box 746
Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
privacy@avant.org.au 
1800 128 268

We will, wherever possible, allow you access to the personal information or a copy we hold about you and correct that personal information if it is wrong. We may charge a fee for our costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you as permitted by law. We will need to validate the identity of anyone making an access request, to ensure that we do not provide your information to anyone who does not have the right to that information. If you are seeking information on another person’s behalf, we will require authorisation from that Individual.

There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal information, some examples include, if it would be illegal to do so, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, if your request is vexatious, where giving access would unfairly impact the privacy of others or if the information is commercially sensitive. In addition, we may need to give you access in a way that preserves the confidentiality of any methodology, data analysis methods, computer programs or other information used by us to derive relevant information.

If we decline a request for access, or refuse to update or correct personal information in accordance with your request, we will provide you with written notice of the reasons together with an outline of the procedure that you can follow to have this decision reviewed.

We are committed to addressing your privacy complaints.

If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act and the Credit Reporting Code, you may contact us at:

The Complaints Officer

Avant Mutual Group Limited
PO Box 746
Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
complaints@avant.org.au 
1800 128 268

Upon receipt of a privacy complaint, we will consider the complaint and attempt to resolve it in accordance with our complaints handling procedures. We will endeavour to promptly respond to your questions, concerns or complaints. We will also endeavour to resolve any concerns or complaints which you may have to your satisfaction within 30 days unless an extension is required. In the unlikely case that we are unable to provide an outcome in this time, we will let you know in writing the reason for the delay. If you are not satisfied with our handling of a privacy complaint or the outcome, you may refer your privacy complaint to an external dispute resolution authority.

Your privacy complaints can be referred to:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”)
In writing: GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Website: www.oaic.gov.au- ext

If you have a privacy compliant in connection with any finance products or services provided by Avant Insurance Limited ACN 003 707 471, Doctors Financial Services Pty Ltd ACN 610 510 328, Avant Doctors’ Finance Pty Ltd ACN 637 769 361 trading as Avant Finance, Avant Doctors’ Finance Brokers Pty Ltd ACN 640 406 784 you may contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (“AFCA”). AFCA provides consumers and small businesses with fair, free and independent dispute resolution for financial complaints.

You can contact AFCA using the following contact details:

Australian Financial Complaints Authority

In writing: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
Telephone: 1800 931 678
Email: info@afca.org.au
Website: www.afca.org.au- external site

We reserve the right to review, and if necessary, make amendments to this Privacy Policy at any time and notify you by posting an updated version of the policy on our websites. Such amendments will take effect from the date of publication on the website.

Please read the online terms of use published on each of our websites which, together with this Privacy Policy, outline how we will treat your personal information when you transact with us on the internet. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure.  We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information submitted to our sites and we review and update our security measures periodically or as required.

Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third-party website, and we are not responsible for privacy policies or the content of any third-party website.  Third-party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy policies and practices.

May 2024

This schedule sets out the privacy policies of Avant Doctors’ Finance Pty Ltd and Avant Doctors’ Finance Brokers Pty Ltd in relation to credit-related information and a reference to "we", "our", and "us" in this Schedule refers to each of those entities.

We may collect, hold, use and disclose credit-related information in connection with any enquiry or application or other request to us for the provision of any finance products or services.

Credit-related information we may collect and use includes credit information and credit eligibility information.

Credit information includes:

• identification information including name, gender, date of birth, residential addresses, Driver Licence number (or other government-issued identification) and current and past employers;
• details of credit you have applied for (including the name of each relevant credit provider, type and amount of credit and the fact we have accessed your consumer credit information to assess a relevant application);
• the type, terms and maximum amount of any finance provided to you, including when that finance was provided and when it was repaid;
• your payment and repayment history information;
• overdue payments and other default information;
• information regarding new arrangement;
• details of any serious credit infringements; and
• publicly available information that relates to your creditworthiness which may include court proceedings information and personal insolvency information.

Credit eligibility information is credit reporting information supplied to us by a credit reporting body, and any information that we derive from it.

We may collect credit-related information directly from you or from details included in your credit application (see also “Collection of personal information from you”). We may also collect from or confirm this information with a third party, such as a credit reporting body, government agencies, other credit providers, your employer, accountant, real estate agent or other referees, your co-loan applicants or co-borrowers, your guarantors/proposed guarantors, your agents and other representatives like your referrers, mortgage or finance brokers, solicitors, conveyancers and settlement agents or other personal representatives. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available, such as from public registers or social media. Where we obtain credit eligibility information from a credit reporting body about you, we may also seek publicly available information and information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed. We may also use derived information from your usage and (where applicable) repayment of any account held with us or other credit providers associated with us.

We may not be able to provide you with the finance products or services you request if you do not provide all of the information requested or do not consent to how we collect, use, hold and disclose your credit-related personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy (including this Schedule).

We store any credit related information you provide to us, or which we obtain about you, with any other personal information we may hold about you. This information may be in physical form or in electronic form on our systems or the systems of our service providers. In some cases, we may need to share some of your information with organisations outside Australia (see “Disclosures overseas” section of our Privacy Policy). Irrespective of the source of the information, we respect and protect the privacy of your credit-related and other personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy (see also “Security” of the Privacy Policy).

The law requires us to advise you of ‘notifiable matters’ in relation to how we may use your credit-related information.  You may request to have these notifiable matters (and this policy) provided to you in an alternative form.

We may exchange your personal and credit-related information with the following credit reporting bodies and any other credit reporting bodies we notify to you from time to time:

• Equifax Pty Ltd

Public enquiries: 13 83 32
Contact page: https://www.equifax.com.au/contact
Privacy Policy can be found at: https://www.equifax.com.au/privacy
www.equifax.com.au

• Illion Australia Pty Ltd

Public enquiries: 13 23 33
Contact page: https://www.illion.com.au/contact-us/
Privacy Policy can be found at: www.illion.com.au/privacy-policy/
https://www.illion.com.au

• Experian Australia Credit Services Pty Ltd,  Public enquiries: 1300 783 684

Email: creditreport@au.experian.com
Privacy Policy can be found at: www.experian.com.au/privacy-policy-terms-conditions
www.experian.com.au 

We use the personal and credit-related information that we exchange with credit reporting bodies to confirm your identity, assess your creditworthiness, assess your application for finance or your capacity to be a guarantor, and manage your finance.

The information we may exchange with credit reporting bodies includes your identification details, what type of loans you have, how much you have borrowed, whether or not you have met your loan payment obligations. and if you have committed a serious credit infringement (such as fraud).

Some of the information may adversely affect your credit worthiness and accordingly, may affect your ability to obtain credit from other lenders. For example, if you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to any finance that we have provided or arranged, or if you have committed a serious credit infringement, we may disclose this information to a credit reporting body.

You have the right to request access to the credit-related information that we hold about you and make a request for us to correct that credit-related information if needed.  See ‘Accessing, updating and questions about personal information’ section of our Privacy Policy for details on how you may access and correct your credit-related and other personal information.

Sometimes your credit-related information will be used by credit reporting bodies for the purposes of ‘pre-screening’ credit offers on the request of other credit providers.  You can contact the credit reporting bodies at any time to request that your credit-related information is not used in this way.

You may also contact the credit reporting bodies to advise them that you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud.  Credit reporting bodies must not use or disclose your credit-related information for a period of twenty-one (21) days after you notify them that you may have been a victim of fraud. 

In addition to using personal information as mentioned in our Privacy Policy, we may collect, hold, use and disclose your credit information as reasonably necessary for our business purposes and as permitted by law. These purposes include:

• to provide you with finance products and services (including situations where we are an agent for another credit provider) which may include assessing your credit application (including for the purposes of mortgage insurance if applicable) or to accept you as a guarantor;
• manage your loans with us or other credit providers whom we have referred you to including assisting you with your queries or concerns, to deal with our mortgage insurers and to develop our services and maintain and develop our systems and infrastructure;
• determine whether you need assistance to meet your repayment obligations to help prevent defaults and assist with financial hardship applications;
• to undertake debt recovery and enforcement activities, including in relation to guarantors, and in circumstances where we reasonably believe that you have committed a serious credit infringement;
• our internal operations, including risk management, internal audit investigations, assess suitability to securitise loans, credit scoring and portfolio analysis and performance reporting, research and product development and planning;
• derive scores, ratings, summaries and evaluations relating to your credit worthiness. These scores are used in our decision-making processes and ongoing reviews;
• determine whether you are eligible to receive particular offers and invitations;
• participate in the credit reporting system and providing information to credit reporting bodies as permitted by credit reporting laws;
• deal with complaints and assist other credit providers to do the same;
• complying with any legal or regulatory obligations.

Disclosure to credit reporting bodies

We may disclose your credit information to credit reporting bodies where the Privacy Act or the Credit Reporting Code permits us to do so. For example, if you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to finance provided by us or if you commit a serious credit infringement we may be entitled to disclose this to credit reporting bodies.

Credit reporting bodies may include credit information provided by us in reports provided to credit providers to assist them to assess your credit worthiness.

Exchanging information with other credit providers

We may exchange your personal information and credit-related information with other credit providers for the purposes of assessing your creditworthiness, credit standing and credit history or credit capacity, as well as assisting you to avoid defaulting on your credit obligations. We may also notify other credit providers of a default made by you.

Disclosure to guarantors

We may disclose your personal information and credit-related information, including credit eligibility information, to any person who proposes to guarantee or has guaranteed repayment of any credit provided to you or who indemnifies you in any way.

Other disclosures

Your credit-related information may also be shared with the types of entities set out in the “Sharing and disclosure of your information” section of our Privacy Policy.

Disclosures overseas

Some of these recipients may be located outside Australia. For more information about which countries your information may be sent to, please see the “Disclosures overseas” section of our Privacy Policy.

You are entitled under the Privacy Act and the Credit Reporting Code to access the credit information we hold about you (in a manner you request, if this is reasonable and practicable) and to make any updates or correction to such credit information. For details on how to make a request for access, update or correction, please see the “Accessing, updating and correction of personal information” section of our Privacy Policy.

If we deny you access to the credit-related information we hold about you, we will explain why.

If appropriate, we will correct the credit-related information at the time of your request.  Otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request.  Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected your personal or credit-related information within 30 days. We may need to consult with other finance providers or credit reporting bodies or entities as part of our investigation. If we agree to a correction, we may also let relevant third parties (such as credit reporting bodies) know as well as any other third parties that you tell us about but we are not obliged to do so unless you request us to or otherwise it will be up to you to ensure your information is up to date with all relevant parties.

If we refuse to provide you with access or to correct credit-related information, we will provide you with our reasons for not providing access or correcting the information. 

If you have an issue or complaint in connection with your credit information, you may contact our Avant Finance complaints officer:

By email: AFComplaints@avant.org.au
By phone: 1300 99 22 08

We will acknowledge your privacy complaint within one business day of receiving it or as soon as reasonably practicable and aim to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible. We may need to get in touch with other organisations such as credit reporting bodies or other credit providers to resolve your privacy complaint. We will try our best to provide you with a decision on your privacy complaint within thirty (30) days unless an extension is required. In the unlikely case that we are unable to provide an outcome in this time, we will let you know in writing the reason for the delay. If you are not satisfied with our response or decision in relation to a request for access, updating and correcting your personal information, you may refer the matter to Avant Group complaints officer as set out in the “Complaints” section of our Privacy Policy.

If you are not satisfied with our handling of a privacy complaint or the outcome in connection with your credit information, you may refer your complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Please see the “Complaints” section of our Privacy Policy for further details on how to report your privacy complaints.