Privacy Policy

This privacy policy describes in detail the privacy practices of Lending Stream Limited, ("Lending Stream") with regard to the personal information that is collected from you by Lending Stream. “You” or “your” means you as a participant in, or as a user of, the Lending Stream website at www.lendingstream.co.uk (the "Website") or any service provided by Lending Stream.  “We” or “our” or “us” means Lending Stream and its affiliates. Lending Stream is registered with the UK's Information Commissioner under number Z1451218.

YOUR CONSENT

We recommend that you read the loan terms and conditions (available to view on our Website) in conjunction with this privacy policy, which provide further details of the ways we collect and use your personal information.

By using this Website, submitting your personal information and/or using our service you consent to the terms of our privacy policy and to the use and disclosure of your personal information in the manner described below. In addition, we reserve the right to use and disclose all information that is not in individually identifiable form as we deem appropriate in our sole discretion.

Our privacy policy applies to all new and existing customers and may change from time to time. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address you provide us with or by placing a prominent notice on our Website, as appropriate.

COLLECTING YOUR INFORMATION

We collect the following types of information about you:

• information collected directly from you through your online application, information collected through on-line forms or entries on our lead providers' websites, or information you provide when you contact our customer services department;
• your telephone communications with us and our customer services department which may be monitored and recorded;
• information about your transactions including loan balances;
• information from outside sources such as credit reference agencies and customer service providers regarding credit worthiness and credit history;
• information about your visits to our Website;
• information that is collected when you use the Website that may be used by us to identify you and validate your use of the Website for fraud prevention purposes;
• information about your computer including, your IP address, operating system and browser type. This is statistical data about browsing actions and patterns and is not in individually identifiable form; and
• automatic information obtained by using "cookies" when your browser accesses our Website and when you log-in. If enabled, cookies may store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of the pages of this Website. Cookies assist us in tracking which of our features appeal the most to you and what content you may have viewed on past visits. When you visit this site again, cookies can enable us to customize our content according to your preferences. These cookies do not track individual user information, and all our cookie data is encrypted and cannot be read by other websites. It is possible to 'turn off' the cookies in your browser and this will not affect the functionality of the Website. You can know more about accepting or refusing cookies from www.aboutcookies.org.

Information about third parties
We may also request that you provide details of individuals who are able to act as referees on your behalf  by verifying some of the personal information you provide about yourself.

From time to time we may also ask you to recommend people who might be interested in hearing about our products and services and provide their contact details to us.  This is completely voluntary and all personal information collected in relation to such people will be dealt with in accordance with this privacy policy.

When you give us information about another individual you confirm that they have appointed you to act for them, to consent to the processing of their personal data, and to the transfer of their information abroad and to receive on their behalf any data protection notices.  You also consent to us informing any third party that you nominate or recommend that you have provided their details to us.
     

USING YOUR INFORMATION

We may use your personal information for a number of purposes including:

• in the normal course of  our business such as processing loan transactions and updating your account records;
• to contact third parties, such as your employer, who you have nominated to verify information about yourself;
• to enhance your experience of using our Website or our services;
• for conducting statistical analysis;
• to identify you when you contact us or visit our Website;
• to identify which of our products, or our partners' products, might interest you;
• to prevent and detect fraud, this may involve the use of voice detection technology to analyse recordings of your telephone calls with us;
• for other regulatory checks including credit assessment; and
• for editorial or feedback purposes for our advertisers.
• We may act as brokers as well as direct lenders, our products and services could sometimes be provided in conjunction with our business partners. It could therefore be necessary to disclose your information to them to provide you with the product/and or services you require;
• We may pass it on to carefully selected third parties who may use it to make contact with you in relation to their offers that you expressed an interest in when registering on our site.

Sharing your information

We may share the personal information you submit with our associated companies and with third parties including:

• lenders, credit reference agencies, customer service providers and collection agencies. We have trusted relationships with these carefully selected third parties who perform services on our behalf. All service providers are bound by contract to maintain the security of your personal information.  Credit reference agencies may add to their records about you, information about our search of their records and your application with us, and this will be seen by other organisations that make searches;
• selected third parties who may use it to contact you by post, telephone, email, SMS or other reasonable methods in relation to offers they feel might interest you, whether or not we enter into an agreement with you;
• a prospective purchaser, in the event our business or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party (in which case personal data held about customers will be one of the transferred assets);
• in order to enforce any of our terms and conditions;
• fraud prevention or law enforcement agencies, in the event false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified. We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example when checking details on applications for credit and credit related and other facilities; managing credit and credit related accounts or other facilities; recovering debt; checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance; and checking details of job applicants and employees.  For further details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies please contact us as described at the end of this privacy policy;
• individuals who you nominate as your referees to verify certain information that you provide to us; and
• if required or compelled to do so by any legal authority.

Transfers outside the EEA

Countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) are required to have a similar standard of protection of your personal data. This is not always the case outside the EEA. Each time you apply for a new loan, we may transfer your personal data outside the EEA (including to our associated companies in India and the USA). However, before doing so, we will ensure that there is adequate protection as required by the relevant Data Protection legislation.

Marketing and opt-out rights

By visiting our Website, you understand and agree that we may contact you via the phone number or e-mail address you enter on your loan application to assist you with your loan or to discuss other products and services that Lending Stream may provide for you.  You may opt-out of receiving these marketing communications from us by responding to any of our e-mail communications with “remove” in the subject line or by sending us an e-mail to customerservice@lendingstream.co.uk .

If you opt-out of our use of your personal information for marketing purposes, we will honour such choice once we have had a reasonable opportunity to process your request.  We reserve the right to take reasonable steps to authenticate your identity with respect to any such request or other inquiry.

As a result of providing us with your personal information, you may receive follow-up contact and offers from third party companies and, while we only work with selected partners, we are not responsible for the services or representations of these third parties.

SECURITY AND RETENTION OF INFORMATION

We are aware of the importance of the data we collect from you and therefore we use advanced technology to protect your information.

We store data in encrypted form on computers and control access via secure web pages. We employ firewalls and other security technologies to protect our servers from external attack.  We train our employees in the proper handling of personal information and when we use other companies to provide services for us, we require them to protect the confidentiality of personal information they receive.

We will keep your personal information for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, to provide you with services and to conduct our legitimate business interests or where otherwise required by law.

ACCESS TO YOUR DATA

You may also request a copy of the information we hold on you by contacting us as described at the end of the privacy policy and requesting further details.  There is a charge for this service (usually £10 ) and you will also need to provide identification

THIRD PARTY LINKS IN OUR WEBSITE

Our site may contain links to third party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own terms and privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability in respect of them.

AGE

To register with us you must be 18-years of age or above.

CONTACT

If you have any questions or concerns about the use of your personal information as described above, please contact us at:

Lending Stream Ltd,
Wisteria Cavendish House,
369 Burnt Oak Broadway,
Edgware, Middlesex,
HA8 5AW

This privacy policy last amended: 27 March 2009