FTS Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

The privacy of information you provide to us is important. This Privacy Policy governs the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information by FTS Financial Services Pty Ltd (“FTS”) ABN 11 142 469 985, FTS Financial Planning Pty Ltd (“FTS Financial Planning”), their related entities, employees and financial advisers that will asiist you (“we”, “us”). This Privacy Policy sets out how we intend to respect your rights to privacy, in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

How we collect personal information

When we refer to “personal information”, we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent. This information may include information or an opinion about you, whether true or not. Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information from you.

We collect information from you through our representatives and financial advisers, and when interviewing you.

The information we collect

The type of personal information we collect may include your name, date of birth, address, account details, occupation and any other information we may need to identify you. If you are seeking financial planning advice we may also collect the number and ages of your dependants, the length of time you have lived at your current address, your employment details, proof of income and expenses and other financial details. If you apply for an insurance product through us we may also collect your health information. We will collect health information from you only with your consent.

If you are seeking financial planning advice from us, we will make it clear what information we need to obtain from you for the purpose of providing financial planning advice, as well as any personal information that may be provided to you at your option. You may choose not to provide optional information requested by us, however this may restrict our ability to assist you.

If you give us personal information about another person, you represent that you are authorised to do so and agree that you have obtained the necessary consent from that person for us to use and disclose their personal information. They may access any personal information we may hold about them.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to assist us to:

  1. Make recommendations to you in respect of risk insurance products, such as insurance for your life, permanent disability, income replacement and critical illness cover;
  2. Make recommendation to you in respect of investment products and services, such as managed investment funds and investor directed portfolio services (IDPS);
  3. Make recommendations to you in respect of superannuation products, including self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF);
  4. Make recommendations to you in respect of investments in direct equities and stock exchange listed products;
  5. Communicate information about our services to you;
  6. Meet our internal administrative, marketing, planning and research requirements.

We will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information when your personal information is no longer required for one of the above purposes.

Disclosure of your information to others

Where possible, we will inform you, at or before the time of collecting your personal information, of the types of organisations to which we intend to disclose your personal information. We pay disclose your information to our related entities, financial advisers, service providers and agents that we use in the ordinary operation of business.

We will disclose your personal information only for the purpose/s for which we collected the personal information. Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:

  1. The person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment; or, if required
  2. You have consented to us doing so. We will disclose your personal information to those third parties only where such disclosure is for the purposes required. We will disclose your personal information when we are required by law to do so. We may use cloud storage to store your personal information that we hold. We do not disclose your personal information outside of Australia.

Direct Marketing

From time to time we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about special offers you may find of interest, changes to our organisation, or new products and services being offered by us or any business with which we are associated. We do not sell your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may, at any time, decline to receive such information by contacting us on the details listed below. If direct marketing is by email, you may also use the unsubscribe function included in such emails. We will not charge you for giving effect to your request at the earliest possible opportunity.

Updating your personal information

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 will ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed. If you wish to make any changes to your information, you may contact us. We will generally rely on you to assist us by informing us if the information we hold about you is accurate or incomplete.

Access to and correction of your personal information

You may request access to any of the personal information we hold about you at any time. In such instances, we will provide you with access to that information. To access your personal information that we hold, use the contact details specified below. We will respond to you within seven days of receiving your request. We may need to contact third parties to properly investigate your request. We will provide you with the outcome of our investigation within 30 days.

There may be situations when we are not required to provide you with access to your personal information. For example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings or if your request is vexatious. An explanation will be provided to you if we deny you access to the personal information about you that we hold.

If any of the personal information about you that we hold is incorrect, inaccurate or out-of-date, you may request that we correct the information. We will provide you 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 the personal information within 30 days.

We may need to consult with third parties as part of our investigation about the accuracy of the information we hold. If we refuse to amend personal information, we will provide you with reasons for not amending the information.

Government related identifiers

If we collect government identifiers, such as your Tax File Number, we do not use or disclose this information other than as required by law. We will never use a government identifier in order to identify you.

Business without identifying you

In most circumstances, it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you. However, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information. For example, if you make general enquiries about interest rates or current promotional offers.

How we store your personal information

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or exposure by:

We store your personal information in both electronic and paper form. We require all staff to maintain confidentiality of the client information. Access to personal information is restricted to employees whose job responsibilities require access to the information. If we no longer need to hold your personal information, it is securely destroyed or de-identified.

Your consent

By asking us to assist with your financial planning needs, you agree that we may collect and use your personal information for the purposes described above.

Contacting us and providing feedback

If you are not satisfied with how we manage your personal information, you may contact our Privacy Officer below. We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days of receipt. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days of receipt.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may amend this Policy from time to time to comply with new laws or codes of practice, or to include any new product or services.

Anonymous data – We use technology to collect anonymous information about the use of our website, for example when you browse our website our service provider logs your server address, the date and time of your visit, the pages and links accessed and the type of browser used. It does not identify you personally and we only use this information for statistical purposes and to improve the content and functionality of our website, to better understand our clients and markets and to improve our services.

Cookies – In order to collect this anonymous data we may use “cookies”. Cookies are small pieces of information which are sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Sometimes they identify users where the website requires information to be retained from one page to the next. This is purely to increase the functionality of the site. Cookies by themselves cannot be used to discover the identity of the user. Cookies do not damage your computer and you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie so that you can decide if you want to accept it. Once you leave the site, the cookie is destroyed and no personal or other information about you is stored. They allow the website to recognise your computer when you return in the future.

  

This Privacy Policy came in to operation on 25 November 2015.