Mortgage Broker Privacy Agreement Question

Hi,

We recently engaged a group of mortgage brokers and started filling out the forms. We asked whether the privacy disclosure needed to be so broad and were told it was standard and if it was changed at all would mean they were non compliant with Australian Credit Legislation. Does this sound right? Obviously most parts make sense, share details with banks, confirm identity etc.

I have included some short parts of it that surprised me in particular at the breadth. I feel like Australian Credit Legislation does not include persons interested in acquiring our business or the direct marketing to us.

Any advice from those experienced in the industry would be much appreciated.

"Each consent given in this document continues until withdrawn in writing.

I/We consent to you using personal, financial and credit information about me/us for the purpose of arranging or providing credit, insuring credit, and for direct marketing of products and services offered by you or any organisation you are affiliated with or represent each of which may contact me/us for such a purpose including by telephone and electronically"


"You may disclose personal information about me/us to the following types of entities, some of which may be located overseas (including in USA, Canada, Malaysia, India, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Philippines):

• persons who provide credit or other products or services to us, or to whom an application has been made for those products or services;
• financial consultants, accountants, lawyers and advisers;
• any industry body, tribunal, court or otherwise in connection with any complaint;
• any person where you are required by law to do so;
• any of your associates, related entities or contractors (including printing/publication/mailing houses, IT service providers, cloud storage providers, lawyers/accountants);
• our referees, such as our employers, to verify information we have provided;
• any person considering acquiring an interest in your business or assets;
• any organisation providing online verification of our identities."

Thanks all!

 

Looks like a generic doc- it's likely their licencee's required form which was decided upon by a committee of legal types to make sure they're compliant. (looks like it might be AFG's privacy statement maybe?) If it's their licencees required document they will not be able to change it.

If it's not and they're a licence holder it's unlikely they will change a privacy disclosure just for you.

Effectively it's broad to just cover the eventualities of applying for any finance and the other requests brokers will have to meet at times - no broker is interested in sending your information any place further than it needs to be. They just want to write loans.

 

The first part about sharing information about marketing looks like your info would be used for them to market to you. They might have affiliated services internally such as accountancy, financial planning or legal services that would get access to this information.

The second part (sending info overseas) covers them off if they're using outsourcing services and also appears to cover the fact that many lenders also use overseas processing centres.

As Corey indicated, there's also their license holder to consider and there's future considerations as well.

Overall whilst this looks frightening, it's not intended to give them a license to misuse your info. It's true that brokers get more personal info than just about anyone, the intention to misuse it really isn't there. The bank themselves are probably a larger risk, they get even more info behind the scenes.

The sad fact is if you want to do business in today's world, you've got to expose your personal information to the world.

 

Thank you guys, appreciate the replies.