Lending privacy notice

1. Introduction

We are committed to respecting your privacy. This privacy notice is to explain how we may use personal information we collect before, during and after your relationship with us. This notice is quite detailed so that our use of your personal data, where it may be obtained from and who it may be passed to is as transparent as possible.

This privacy notice applies to you if you are an applicant, borrower, guarantor, advisor or other individual who is directly involved in the process of us providing finance to you or a person connected with you, for example you might be a director of an applicant/borrower or you might be a trusted business confidant of an applicant/borrower. This privacy notice does not apply to agents or intermediaries for financial services.

The privacy notice sets out the basis on which any personal data about you that you provide to us, that we create, or that we obtain about you from other sources, will be processed by us. Please take the time to read and understand this privacy notice. We may update this privacy notice from time to time and so you should check back periodically.

References to we, our or us in this privacy notice are to Atelier Capital Partners Limited and any other companies which are in the same group of companies or which are under common control.

We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee our compliance with data protection laws as we not required to do so, but our Compliance Officer has overall responsibility for data protection compliance in our organisation.  Contact details are set out in the “Contacting us” section at the end of this privacy notice.

For the purposes of data protection law, we (i.e. the entities listed above) are a controller in respect of your personal information and we are responsible for ensuring that we use your personal data in compliance with data protection law.

Types of personal information we collect about you

We will collect and process personal information about you. The type of personal information will depend on the nature of our relationship with you and your link with any finance we may provide.  Personal information about you may include personal information regarding your:

  • personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, social media handles, personal email addresses and Skype account contact details
  • passport/driving licence details (including copies where we are required to hold such information for identification purposes), date of birth, gender, electoral roll information and other personal identifiers and identity check information
  • business information relating to you such as role, position, income, profits, financial position, tax status, trading position, creditor and debtor positions, cashflows and other business related information
  • financial information relation to you such as bank statements, payments, debts, loans, mortgages, credit history, credit rating, previous credit applications, credit insurance
  • records of your interactions with us such as telephone conversations, client meetings, emails and other correspondence and your instructions to us
  • your marketing preferences so that we know whether and how we should contact you
  • details about how you use our website e.g. the pages you look at and how you use them, usernames and passwords
  • images in photographic and/or video format and/or audio recordings where we record any meetings, video-conferences or telephone calls involving you
  • attendance at any events we host or organise and any relevant preferences
  • biometric data (e.g. facial recognition, fingerprints)
  • referee details, next of kin, beneficiaries, details of family members and emergency contacts

Depending on the nature of our interactions with you, there may be certain essential personal information that we must collect from you in relation to your relationship with us.  This will vary depending on the relationship we have with you.

We may also ask you for additional personal information which it is optional for you to provide but which will allow us to better tailor our relationship with you.  For example, you may provide us with additional contact details to make it easier for us to get in touch with you or details of any personal interests or outside work information, e.g. hobbies, marital status, favourite sports teams etc.

We will always aim to make it clear which personal information it is necessary for you to provide and which personal information is optional.  However, if you are unsure as to whether you are required to provide any particular piece of personal information please ask.

3. Special categories of personal information

We do not generally collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information regarding you unless you are an applicant or borrower and it is included in any application or your ongoing interactions with us including information you may voluntarily share with us:

  • information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
  • information about your trade union memberships
  • information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, medical records and health professional information and disability information and
  • biometric information about you, for example fingerprints, retina scans

If you are not an applicant or borrower then we are much less likely to collect special categories of personal information about you as mentioned above, but we still may do so if you provide it to us.

We may also collect criminal records information. For criminal records information in relation to you we process it based on legal obligations or based on your explicit consent.

4. Where we collect your personal information

If you are an applicant or borrower or guarantor or connected with any of those we typically collect personal information about you when you fill in forms, complete applications, complete documents or when you correspond or interact with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise or other people do so on your behalf.

We also may collect personal information about you through other sources such as LinkedIn, social media, personnel recommendations and referrals, web platforms and using business development tools and market research. We may do this to improve our business and products and provide an enhanced service.  We may only use this personal information to market to you to you in accordance with the marketing preferences you set or agree to.

We may also obtain personal information about you from other third parties including credit reference agencies, other lenders, fraud prevention agencies, law enforcement agencies, insolvency practitioners, debt advisers, tracing agents, commercial database providers, marketing database providers, public records providers, Companies House and other publicly available information sources.

If you are providing us with details of referees, next of kin, beneficiaries, family members and emergency contacts they have a right to know and to be aware of how what personal information we hold about them, how we collect it and how we use and may share that information.  Please share this privacy notice with those of them whom you feel are sufficiently mature to understand it. They also have the same rights as set out in the “Your rights in relation to personal information” section below.

5. Uses made of your personal information

Your personal data may be stored and processed by us in the following ways and for the following purposes:

  • To make lending decisions: if you are an applicant or borrower or guarantor, this may include assessing your application, checking details on applications, making a credit decision, opening accounts
  • To verify your identity and prevent any fraud or money laundering: by, for example, checking details provided on applications for credit or other facilities
  • To provide you with information and services that you request from us: this will include maintaining accounts, updating our records, transferring or receiving money and servicing loans
  • Administering and managing our relationship with you: for example, managing any account(s) you have with us
  • Dealing with enquiries, complaints and any legal disputes involving you
  • For audit and other legal and regulatory requirements: for example we are required to process and check certain data to meet our audit obligations and we may have other legal obligations, for example health and safety, and other regulatory obligations, for example to the Financial Conduct Authority that we need to comply with
  • For debt collection: for example, enforcing loan or security provisions or tracing you in the case of a financial default
  • For statistical analysis: for example, for the purposes of aggregating, reporting and other efficiency algorithms
  • For marketing: for example, we may process certain personal information to send you select marketing communications (these will generally be emails to you from us) which we believe would be of interest to you.  You can opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by letting us know
  • For record-keeping: for example, keeping copies of applications, recordings of credit interviews, recordings of conversations, copies of background checks carried out, payments made, payments received and other relevant information

If you give us false or inaccurate information and/or we suspect or identify fraud or money laundering risks, we will record this and may allow law enforcement agencies to access and use your personal information to detect, investigate and prevent crime. We may also access and use information recorded by credit or fraud prevention agencies in other countries. This information may contain your personal data.

If we, or a fraud prevention agency, determine that you pose a fraud or money laundering risk, we may refuse to provide any finance which has been requested and/or we may stop providing existing finance.

6. Bases for processing your personal information

We are entitled to use your personal information in these ways because:

  • you (or an agent or intermediary acting on your behalf) require us to take specific steps to decide if we can enter into a finance contract with you, including to make credit decisions and where appropriate provide you with indicative loan terms and/or a loan offer and the processing of your personal information is necessary for us to do this
  • the processing is necessary for us to enter into a finance agreement with you and to perform the finance agreement including to provide you with information and services related to the finance agreement
  • we have legal and regulatory obligations that we have to discharge, particularly in respect to the prevention of fraud and money laundering, to comply with your rights under data protection law if you make a request, to comply with our audit obligations and to comply with our regulatory obligations, in particular those set by the Financial Conduct Authority
  • we may need to use your personal information to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights or for the purpose of legal proceedings
  • the use of your personal data as described is necessary for our legitimate interests, such as: compliance with regulatory requirements, to improve and expand our business by marketing, to enforce and perform contracts with third parties, to prevent, detect and prosecute criminal activity
  • we may have obtained your consent, or you may have asked us to deal with your personal information in a particular way or
  • the use is necessary to protect the vital interests of another person or is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, for example the prevention, detection and prosecution of criminal activity

If we process special category information about you, we do so on one or more of the following bases that:

  • the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on a lawful basis
  • it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
  • it is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising our or your rights in the field of employment and social security and social protection law or
  • it is based on your explicit consent

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do this.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with data protection laws, where this is required or permitted by law.

For some of your personal information you will have a legal, contractual or other requirement or obligation for you to provide us with your personal information.  If you do not provide us with the requested personal information we may not be able to engage you or the organisation you represent or we may not be able to properly perform our contract with you or the organisation you represent or comply with legal obligations and we may have to terminate your engagement or the engagement with the organisation you represent.  For other personal information, whilst you may not be under an obligation to provide it to us, if you do not provide it then we may not be able to properly perform our role or services.

You should be aware that you are not required under any contract with us to agree to any request for consent.  Where you have given us your consent to use your personal information in a particular manner, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, which you may do by contacting us as described in the “Contacting us” section below.

Please note that the withdrawal of your consent will not affect any use of the personal information made before you withdrew your consent and we may still be entitled to hold and process the relevant personal information on bases which do not require your consent.  Withdrawing consent may also have the same effects as not providing the information in the first place, for example we may no longer be able to provide certain services.

7. Direct marketing

From time to time, we may contact you by email, post or SMS with information about products and services we believe you may be interested in.  This will generally be where you are an applicant or borrower or a representative of an organisation which is an applicant or borrower, or we believe that you or the organisation you represent is a potential customer for our business.

We will only send marketing messages to you in accordance with the marketing preferences you set or agree to.  You can let us know at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing messages by emailing us at compliance@atelierfinance.co.uk. You can also unsubscribe from our marketing by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing messages we send to you.

8. Automated decision making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you. We do use technology to better match you with finance that fit your requirements so that you only receive relevant details, but there will always be an element of human interaction in the decision making.

9. Who we may share your personal information with

We share personal information with the following third parties:

  • Companies in the same group of companies as us or which are under common control with us: for the purpose of providing a service to you
  • Third party finance providers: for example, where this is relevant to an application for a loan which is being made
  • Any party approved by you: for example, this could be a trusted business confidant, an advisor, another finance provider
  • Applicants/Borrowers/Guarantors connected to you: for example, if you are an advisor to an applicant/borrower of ours we may share information on the advice you provide where appropriate or we may share details regarding outstanding payments with a guarantor
  • Other service providers to our business and advisors: for example marketing providers, payment processors, data analysts, survey providers, business development tool providers, social media, professional advisors such as legal advisors/accountants, contractors, CCTV providers and administration and IT service providers (including CRM, website, video and teleconference services)
  • Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies: for example, to companies such as Experian so that they can assist in credit checks and fraud prevention and to update their databases
  • Purchasers of our business: buyers or perspective buyers to whom we sell or negotiate to sell our business.
  • The Government or regulators: where we are required to do so by law or to assist with their investigations or initiatives, for example HMRC or the Information Commissioner’s Office or the Financial Conduct Authority; and
  • Police, law enforcement and security services: to assist with the prevention, investigation and prosecution of crime and the protection of national security.

We may share your personal information where it is necessary to administer our relationship in relation to any loan or application for a loan or we have a legitimate interest in sharing your personal information.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation or regulatory requirements, or in order to enforce or manage our relationship, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so.  This includes exchanging information with other organisations for the purposes of fraud protection.

All our third-party service providers to our business and other entities in our group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We do not normally disclose personal information to anyone else, except as set out above.  Who we may disclose your personal information to will depend upon the nature of our relationship with you.

10. Transferring your personal information internationally

The personal information we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). Some of these jurisdictions require different levels of protection in respect of personal information and, in certain instances, the laws in those countries may be less protective than the jurisdiction you are typically resident in.

Where we transfer your personal data outside the UK and the EEA, we will make sure suitable safeguards are in place to protect your personal data, in line with data protection law. This may be done in a number of ways, for instance:

  • the country that we send the data to might be approved by the UK and/or European Commission as already having adequate protections;
  • the recipient might have signed up to a contract based on “model contractual clauses” approved by the UK and/or the European Commission, obliging them to protect your personal data; or
  • in other circumstances the law may permit us to otherwise transfer your personal information outside the UK and the EEA.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is only used in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable data protection laws and is respected and kept secure and where a third party processes your data on our behalf we will put in place appropriate safeguards as required under data protection laws.  For further details please contact us by using the details set out in the “Contacting us” section below.

11. How long we keep your personal information for

The duration for which we retain your personal information will differ depending on the type of information and the reason why we collected it from you. However, in some cases personal information may be retained on a long-term basis: for example, personal information that we need to retain for legal or regulatory purposes will normally be retained in accordance with usual commercial practice and regulatory requirements.  Generally, where there is no legal requirement, we retain all physical and electronic records for a period of 6 years following your last contact with us or the end of our relationship with you.

Exceptions to this general rule are:

  • We may retain and process your personal information for longer than this if we are involved in a dispute with you which commences before the 6 years has expired

It is important to ensure that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date, and you should let us know if anything changes, for example if your circumstances change or you change your phone number or email address. You can contact us by using the details set out in the “Contacting us” section below.

12. Your rights in relation to your personal information

You have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

  • the right to be informed about how your personal information is being used;
  • the right to access the personal information we hold about you;
  • the right to request the correction of inaccurate personal information we hold about you;
  • the right to request the erasure of your personal information in certain limited circumstances;
  • the right to restrict processing of your personal information where certain requirements are met;
  • the right to object to the processing of your personal information
  • the right to request that we transfer elements of your personal information either to you or another service provider in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or request that we transmit your personal information to a third party where this is technically feasible;
  • the right to withdraw any consent previously given in relation to use of your personal information;
  • the right to object to direct marketing; and
  • the right to object to certain automated decision-making processes using your personal information.

You should note that some of these rights, for example the right to require us to transfer your data to another service provider or the right to object to automated decision making, may not apply as they have specific requirements and exemptions which apply to them and they may not apply to personal information recorded and stored by us.  For example, we do not solely use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.  However, some have no conditions attached, so your right to withdraw consent or object to processing for direct marketing are absolute rights.

Whilst this privacy notice sets out a general summary of your legal rights in respect of personal information, this is a very complex area of law.  More information about your legal rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/.

To exercise any of the above rights, or if you have any questions relating to your rights, please contact us by using the details set out in the “Contacting us” section below.

If you are unhappy with the way we are using your personal information you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or your local data protection regulator. However, we are here to help and we encourage you to contact us to resolve your complaint first.

13. Data anonymisation and aggregation

We may convert your personal information into statistical or aggregated data which can’t be used to identify you and this may be used to produce research or reports. This aggregated data may be used or shared and it will no longer be your personal information once you can no longer be identified.

14. Changes to this notice

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. When we change this privacy notice in a material way, we will update the version date at the bottom of this page. For significant changes to this privacy notice we will try to give you reasonable notice unless we are prevented from doing so. Where required by law we will seek your consent to changes in the way we use your personal information.

15. Contacting us

In the event of any query or complaint in connection with the information we hold about you, please email compliance@atelierfinance.co.uk or write to us at Compliance Officer, Atelier Capital Partners Limited, 3-5 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HJ.

16. Credit and fraud prevention agencies

Credit Reference Agency contact details

You can contact the Credit Reference Agencies currently operating in the UK; and the information they hold may not be the same, so it is worth contacting them all.

TRANSUNION, One Park Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS3 1EP or call 0330 024 7574 or log on to: https://www.transunion.co.uk/consumer/consumer-enquiries

EQUIFAX PLC, Customer Service Centre PO Box 10036, Leicester, LE3 4FS or call 0333 321 4043 or 0800 014 2955 or log on to: https://www.equifax.co.uk/Contact-us/Contact_Us_Personal_Solutions.html

EXPERIAN, Consumer Help Service, PO Box 9000, Nottingham NG80 7WF or call 0344 481 0800 or 0800 013 8888 or log on to: https://ins.experian.co.uk/contact

The ways in which Credit Reference Agencies use and share personal information is explained in the Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) which can be accessed via any of the following links:

www.transunion.co.uk/crain
www.equifax.co.uk/crain
www.experian.co.uk/crain

Fraud prevention agency contact details

You can contact the Fraud Prevention Agencies currently operating in the UK and details are below.

CIFAS, Consumer Affairs, Cifas, 6th Floor, Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9LT, or call 0330 100 0180 or log on to https://www.cifas.org.uk/contact-us

National SIRA, Compliance Department, Synectics Solutions Ltd, Synectics House, The Brampton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle, ST5 0QY