Who we are

FinSpace Group is responsible for processing the personal information you provide to us and is registered with the Information Commissioners Office in the UK under the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (registration number ZA447275).

To find out more information about the data protection act please visit https://ico.org.uk/, or if there’s anything you’re unsure about in this Privacy Policy, feel free to contact us at contactus@finspacegroup.co.uk

Our Product Offering

We are a regulated credit broker, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We/one of our whole market brokers would introduce customers to a lender/group of lenders who provide a range of lending options which may be suitable for you.

Our Service Offering

In assessing your demands and needs we will need to obtain some information about your personal circumstances. Depending on your responses we will either make recommendations or introduce you to one of our regulated and whole-of-market brokers who will make recommendations that are suitable for you.

Our Charges

Once you have entered into the agreement with the lender, we may receive a commission from the lender/broker we have introduced you to. Please note: For some products, some of our panel brokers/lenders may charge an administrative fee, however, this will be clearly documented in your written quotation.

In some instances an Engagement Fee and/or Broker Fee will be charged by us. This will be highlighted after assessing the initial customer requirements.

What Information We Collect

To give you the best service possible, we will need to ask you for certain personal information. We will use this information for security, identification and verification purposes.

When you access our website, we will also collect information about the devices you’re using – through web analytics providers. This involves using technologies such as cookies, please read our Cookies policy.

Rest assured, we only ever collect information that helps us provide our services to you. We will keep your information for as long as is needed and only for the following purposes:

• Legitimate business activities
• Statutory or legal obligations
• Auditing and regulatory purposes

We sometimes need to pass your information on to third parties who provide services to us. We do this on the understanding that they care for your information as carefully as we do, keep it confidential and use it only for the service you have enquired about.

So that we can offer you the best service throughout your relationship with us (either now or in the future), we will hold your personal information securely in our systems. This will include any information provided by you or others (for example, if you’re making a joint application) in various ways, including (but not limited to):

In applications, emails and letters, during telephone calls and conversations in our offices, when registering for services, in customer surveys, when you participate in competitions and promotions when using our company websites, and during financial reviews and interviews.

From analysis (including the creation of profiles used to uniquely identify you when you use our online, mobile and telephony services) which are used to help us combat fraud and other illegal activity; and

Information we receive from or through other organisations (for example, credit reference agencies, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, comparison websites, social networks, and fraud prevention agencies) whether in the course of providing products and services to you or otherwise, and from the information we gather from your use of and interaction with our website and the devices you use to access them.

Contact Information

When you make an enquiry with us about any of the services we offer, we will ask you to provide some contact information. This may include some or all of the following:

• Full name
• Business address
• Business phone number
• Business email address
• Borrowing requirements
• Sensitive personal information

For products such as insurance, we will need to collect and process information that the Data Protection Act defines as “sensitive”. This may include details about your health and any criminal convictions you have. If we need to ask for anything like this, we will always explain what information we require and why. Rest assured, we will always process and store this information securely.

Website Usage

When you visit our website or use our online services, we collect certain data automatically. This may include (but isn’t limited to) the following:

• How you connect to the internet (including your IP address)
• How you use our site, for example, your screen resolution and browser data stored on your device (such as cookies – see our Cookies Policy for more on this)
• Information about the device software you use, such as your internet browser
• Location data such as the city or region of the IP address you used when accessing our online services

Phone Calls

So that we can offer you the best possible customer service, we may monitor or record our phone calls with you. This helps us check we’ve done what you asked us to do correctly, resolve any queries or issues and train our staff to provide a quality service. We also monitor phone calls for regulatory purposes and to help detect and prevent fraud and other crimes.

Updating Your Details

If you tell us about changes to your personal details, we will update your records in our database for you. But if you’ve opened an account or policy with another organisation that we introduced you to, you’ll need to contact them personally to make updates.

How We Use The Information

Storing your personal information helps us improve our products, services and the ways in which we offer them to you in lots of different ways.

Enabling you to access our website and use our services.

We will need to use your information to accept you as a new or returning customer.

Letting you know about significant changes to our products, terms or privacy policy.

If there are any significant changes to our products or their features, our terms or our privacy policy, we will let you know by email, text message or when you log into our website.

Improving how we support you and all our customers.

So we don’t have to start from scratch every time you contact us, we use your information to provide and improve the support we offer.

Telling you about other related products you may be interested in.

We may use your details to identify other products and services we offer that we believe you might want to know about – but only if you give us consent.

If you no longer wish to receive such information from us, you can update your preferences by contacting us in any of the following ways:

Write to:

Finspace Group Ltd
22 City Road
London EC1Y 2AJ
UK

Email: contactus@finspacegroup.co.uk

Fraud Investigation, Detection and Prevention

We may use your information for fraud investigation, detection and prevention measures and in order to provide suitable security for your account and your information that we hold (such as to enable us to prevent others logging in to your account without your permission from unknown devices).

Staff Training

To ensure you have the best possible experience when you contact us, we will use your information to ensure our team has the knowledge and expertise to meet your needs.

Reporting & Analytics

Knowing more about who our customers are can help us improve the products we offer. So we will use your data for reporting and analytical purposes – for example, looking at how many of our customers are in the north or south of the country.

Your data together with that of other users may be aggregated for the building of statistical and analytical tables. At no time will your data be individually identifiable in such tables.

Even with security measures in place, it’s important to remember that the internet is not 100% secure. This means we can’t guarantee the security of any information you send us online. We’re also not responsible for any loss or damage you or others may suffer as a result of losing the confidentiality of your information.

Improve Services

Collecting data on how you use our websites helps us to better understand your interests. It can also help us detect if someone else is trying to access your account or use the services that we’re providing you. By building a clearer picture of how you interact with us, we can help make sure we are offering you our best service.

Maintaining Statutory Records

Like any business, we need to make sure we keep comprehensive and up-to-date records of the ways we process your information – along with the day-to-day administrative tasks that go into running our business.

Resolving Complaints and Disputes

Our goal is to make sure all our customers are happy with our service. But we’re only human. So if you do make a complaint, we will use the information we have about you to help us resolve things for you.

Regulatory Compliance

As you might expect, the law requires us to comply with lots of regulations – including ones about processing customer information. Where necessary, we use your personal data to allow us to fulfil our legal requirements.

Improve Communication

We want to make all our communications as useful to you as possible. To achieve this, we may use performance tracking technology within our emails to capture information including (but not limited to) the time and date you open our emails and the type of device you used to open them.

The first thing these details allow us to see is whether our emails are opened, and what links our customers click on within them. Then we use this information to improve the emails we send to you and the services we provide.

We may share this information with other organisations (for example, mortgage lenders) to help them improve their own interactions with you. Rest assured that we do not pass your data to any third parties for marketing purposes unless you have an existing relationship with them. And you will not receive any marketing emails from them unless you have given them your consent to contact you in this way.

Social Media

Like every business, we want to understand our customers even better. To do this, we may research what people are saying about us in public comments made on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Uses Not Described

If we ever have to use your personal information for any purposes that we have not described in this policy, you’ll hear from us. We will let you know exactly what we will use it for before we go any further and, where appropriate, obtain your consent.

Handling Personal Information

Data protection laws require that to process your personal data, we must meet at least one prescribed condition for it. We rely on the following conditions for the activities we carry out.

Necessary for the performance of a contract or to comply with the law.

In most cases, you will provide the information because you want to use our services. This means that our use of your information is governed by contract terms. It’s your choice to give us this information. If you choose not to, we may not be able to provide the services you want.

This condition is one we rely on for data processing in the following scenarios:

• Enabling you to access our website and use our services
• Letting you know about significant changes to our products, terms or privacy policy
• Confirming your identity and verifying the information you provide
• Providing and improving customer support
• Sending you service communications
• Responding to your enquiries and complaints
• Providing you with products and services and keeping you up to date with important changes and developments to their features and how they work
• Managing offers, competitions, and promotions
• Carrying out financial reviews
• Understanding your requirements
• Assessing risks
• Updating, consolidating, and improving the accuracy of our records

Consent

Where we collect other information from you – or when third parties do so for us – we always ask for your consent first. For example, before you use our website you will be asked to consent to us using cookies to collect data about the device you’re using. If you don’t want to give consent, or you remove your consent at a later point, we may not be able to provide all the services you want.

We also seek your consent in the following scenarios:

• Marketing: To help you explore all your options, from time to time we’d like to let you know about products, services and offers from www.finspacegroup.co.uk
• Market research: We invite you to participate in market research (more on this below). Any feedback you provide is used with your consent

Our “Legitimate Interests”

In the United Kingdom, organisations can use personal information where the benefits of doing so are not outweighed by the interests or fundamental rights or freedoms of individuals. The law calls this the “Legitimate Interests” condition for processing.

We rely on this condition for processing personal data for the following benefits:

• Preventing and detecting crimes such as fraud and money laundering – Fraud and money laundering cost the British economy billions of pounds every year. This cost ultimately reaches the public in the form of higher prices. We can help stop this from happening by using your personal data to avoid fraud and identity theft
• Compliance with regulatory requirements – We must comply with various legal and regulatory requirements. And the services we provide also help other organisations comply with their own legal and regulatory obligations. For example, Finspace Group Limited is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, who may require us to provide information to them as part of our regulatory responsibilities
• Staff training – To offer you the best possible standards of service, we use the information we collect to train our staff so they can better meet your needs
• Marketing services – We have put in place various safeguards to make sure that the individuals whose personal information we handle are not disadvantaged by the activities we use their personal data for. These include making sure people can access the information they need to understand how their personal data will be used by us. We also try to make sure people are aware of the rights they have to obtain the information we hold and to have their information corrected or restricted – and how to complain if they’re unhappy
• Reporting and analytics – Processing personal information helps us analyse the service we are providing and identify ways to improve
• Website usage – Understanding how people use our website or get in touch with us helps us to improve our services
• General administration – We always strive to provide the most accurate information to our customers and clients
• Resolving complaints and disputes – If you have a reason to make a complaint, we will use your information to help us look into things for you
• Improving data accuracy and completeness – When you register for our services you may give us additional information about yourself. We will use this to improve the accuracy and completeness of our data
• Email tracking – This helps us to improve our communications to our customers

Sharing Information

Because of the nature of our role as an introducer, we share the personal information you give us with people who need to handle it so that we can provide our services to you. We may also pass your personal information to fraud prevention agencies. This helps us keep our systems secure and – where necessary – protect your and our best interests.

Here are the organisations that we may share your personal information with:

• Suppliers – We use a number of service providers to support our business. They may have selective (restricted) access to our systems and data so that they can provide services to us and/or to you on our behalf
• Resellers, distributors and agents – We sometimes use organisations to help provide our products and services to you. They will have selective (restricted) access to your data so that they can do this
• Public bodies, law enforcement and regulators – The police, other law enforcement agencies, regulators, as well as public bodies such as local and central authorities, can sometimes request personal information
• Lenders and Brokers– We will share personal information (such as your name and address) with lenders and brokers. This is for purposes that may include:
  • Verifying that you’re eligible for the product you’re applying for
  • Supporting you to complete your application to the lender (which may include pre-filling the application form on their website)
  • Contacting you about credit and financial products and complying with any contractual, legal and/or regulatory obligations
• Individuals – You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. See “Your rights”, for more information about how to do this

Potential Recipients

To fulfil our contractual obligations, we will also share your personal data with the following third parties:

• Lenders
• Brokers
• Lead suppliers (if you were introduced to us by a third party)

If you no longer wish us to share your data with any of these organisations, you may withdraw your consent at any time.

You can rest assured that we will always make sure your information remains safe and secure.

International Data Sharing

FinSpace Group is based exclusively in the UK. Our main databases are in the UK. This means any personal information we access from or transfer to these locations is protected by European data protection standards.

While countries in the European Economic Area all have rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that don’t offer the same quality of legal protection when it comes to your personal information.

So to make sure we keep your personal information safe and sound, we apply strict safeguards when transferring it overseas. For example:

• Sending your personal information to countries approved by the European Commission as having high-quality data protection laws, such as Switzerland, Canada and the Isle of Man
• Sending your personal information to a member organisation approved by the European Commission as providing a suitable level of high-quality protection. For example, the Privacy Shield Scheme that exists in the US

Your Rights

You have the right to see and receive a copy of any personal information we hold about you. You also have the right to have any inaccurate information corrected. We will be happy to talk through these requests with you.

One of the ways we protect your confidentiality is to check that anyone asking for personal information has the right to receive it. Sometimes we may ask you to prove your identity or provide a written authority before making information available.

To ask for a copy of your details, or to make a change to your details, you can contact us in any of the following ways:

Write to:

Finspace Group Ltd
22 City Road
London EC1Y 2AJ
UK

Email: contactus@finspacegroup.co.uk

You can also ask us to restrict access, stop processing, correct mistakes or delete the information we hold on you. It’s worth noting that in some cases we’re not always required to correct, delete or stop processing personal data, even if you ask us to.

In certain circumstances (e.g. where you provide your information to us (a) with consent to process it or (b) where the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you) you can require that we provide the information we hold about you either to you or a third party in a commonly used format. This only applies if we’re processing it solely using automated processes. If you’d like more information about this, let us know by emailing contactus@finspacegroup.co.uk

Complaints

We take the privacy of your personal information very seriously. But if you ever feel you need to complain about how we’ve handled things, you can contact us in any of the following ways:

Write to:

Finspace Group Ltd
22 City Road
London EC1Y 2AJ
UK

Email: contactus@finspacegroup.co.uk

If you are unhappy with any aspect of how we handle your personal information, you also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). This is the supervisory authority that regulates the handling of personal information in the UK. You can contact them in the following ways:

Website: https://ico.org.uk

Call: 0303 123 1113

Write to: 

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow SK9 5AF
UK

Information Storage

At FinSpace Group, we understand how important it is to keep your personal information secure. We use a variety of technologies and procedures to protect your private data from being accessed, used or disclosed in any way it shouldn’t be. For example, we store the information you give us on computer systems with limited access, which are located in controlled facilities. We also regularly review our policies and procedures to make sure they remain relevant.

The security arrangements have put in place include physical, organisational, and technological measures.

As covered in “Sharing Information”, we have to share your information with third parties to carry out some of our services, including lenders and brokers among others. We require every third party that we share information with to keep up adequate security safeguards and comply with all the required laws and standards for protecting personal information.

Information Disposal

We will keep your personal information securely stored for as long as we need it to provide you with the services you want from us. We also keep it to comply with legal obligations – and to help us resolve any disputes that might come up.

As the reasons that we keep your personal information can vary – depending on what it is and what products or services you are signed up to – we may need to keep certain details for longer than others.

In every case, we regularly reassess whether we need to hold your personal information. And anything that we don’t need anymore will be securely disposed of.

Privacy Policy Update

We can update this Privacy Policy at any time. So ideally, you should check it regularly.

Cookie Policy

A cookie is a small computer file, which may be downloaded to your computer’s hard drive when you visit a website. Cookies are harmless files which can help improve your experience of using a website if your browser’s preferences allow it. The website can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering your online preferences.

Most cookies are deleted as soon as you close your browser – these are called session cookies. Others, known as persistent cookies, are stored on your computer until you delete them, or they expire (see the ‘How can I control or delete these cookies?’ question below on how to delete cookies).

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our Sites to tailor them to user needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

We also work with third parties in providing you services through our site and they may set a cookie on your computer as part of this arrangement.

Our Cookie Usage

In general, the cookies used by us fall into four groups:

• Critical: These cookies are necessary to enable you to use our Site. Without these cookies, our Site will not work properly and you may not be able to use our tools and services
• Functionality: These cookies allow us to remember the choices you make (such as your user name) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For example, the free tools we build often use a cookie to make them easier to use. The cookie may remember which questions you have answered in a quiz so that we can tell you your score
• Website usage analytics: These help us see which articles, tools and deals are of most interest to you. Information is all collected anonymously
• Advertising: We don’t allow advertising (for more on this, see How This Site Is Financed). But we do promote ourselves on third-party sites and use cookies to let you know about what we think you will be interested in, based on your previous visits to our site. The cookies help us understand how effectively we are doing this and limit the number of times you see our promotions. We also include links to social networks such as Facebook, and if you interact with this content, the social networks may use information about your interactions to target advertising to you on their websites

Any cookies which are not used to make your experience of getting to and using the site better only provide us with statistics about the way users in general navigate the site. We do not use any information derived from cookies to identify any individual users.

We audit the types of cookies that are used on our site, but it is possible that the services we use may make changes to their cookie names and purposes. Some services, particularly social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, change their cookies regularly. We always aim to show you up-to-date information but may not be able to reflect these changes in our policy straightaway.

Control or Delete Cookies

The majority of web browsers automatically enable cookies as a default setting. To stop cookies being stored on your computer in future, you will need to alter the settings of your internet browser. You can find instructions on how to do this by clicking ‘Help’ in the menu bar or following the browser-by-browser instructions from AboutCookies.org.

For Google Analytics cookies you can also stop Google from collecting your information by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

If you want to delete any cookies already on your computer, you’ll need to locate the file or directory that your computer stores them in.

Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to post messages in our forums. Further information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at AboutCookies.org.