Copyright / Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Bristol & West Investments Plc are committed to protecting your privacy during your visits to our website and recognise our responsibility to keep the information you provide to us confidential at all times. We will therefore protect your personal information provided to us from the Internet or any other channels through which we may interact with you.

Bristol & West Investments Plc will only collect, process and store information about you that:

we openly collected from you;
we have openly collected from you with your consent; and
is relevant to providing our service.

We will keep your information while you have a relationship with us and for any retention period that we are legally required to meet. If, to enable us to provide this service, we need to transfer your information to another company, we will advise you accordingly.

If you use standard e-mail communication with Bristol & West Investments Plc, information will not be protected in the same way and you should be aware that we are unable to guarantee that the information contained therein remains confidential whilst in transit. All e-mail sent to us will be monitored and checked to ensure our systems operate effectively.

This privacy policy only covers the Bristol & West Investments Plc branded website and links within this site to external websites are not covered by this policy. Please note that any changes we make to this policy will be communicated electronically on the home page of this site and not by individual written communication.

Personal information

Bristol & West Investments Plc hold the following details about you:

personal information, such as your name, address and date of birth;
details of your account(s) with Bristol & West Investments Plc; and
details of when you contact us and when we contact you.

Sometime you may wish to make an informal request to see part of your information because you want to check specific details on your account(s). We will be happy to discuss these requests with you but, as you will appreciate, there is a need for us to protect your confidentiality. One of the ways in which we do this is to check that anyone asking for personal information has the right to receive it, therefore, sometimes we may ask you to prove your identity or provide a written authority before making information available.

Checking Indentity

Bristol & West Investments Plc are required by law to check the identity of our new customers. This makes it more difficult for criminals to use the financial system and to use false names and addresses, or the identities of innocent people. Checking identity is an important way of fighting money laundering and other criminal activities.

To meet this requirement we will access databases held by a credit reference agency in order to validate your name and address. This involves checking the details you provide against those held on a number of databases to confirm your identity. If we are unable to validate your name and address details electronically, we may ask you to provide certain documents to confirm your name and address.

In addition to this, as part of our ongoing requirement to verify the identity of existing customers, you may be asked to provide certain documents to confirm your name and/or address even though you may not be applying for new products or services.

Marketing

Your details are used to help us to identify new products and services that we believe may be of interest to you.

When you purchase a new product with us, you will have the opportunity to tell us if you do not wish to receive marketing information. From time to time we may invite you to review that decision, but you can write to us at any time to ask for your name to be removed from our mailing list.

If you provide us with information about accounts you hold with other financial providers, we will record these details. We will only do this with your agreement. This information will be used to help us improve our products, services and marketing communications.

We may share your details specialist market research companies. These companies may contact you on behalf of Bristol & West Investments Plc and invite you to take part in market research.

Sharing Your Details

Within Bristol & West Investments Plc.

Information about you and your account(s) will be shared within the company to make lending decisions, trace debtors, collect debts, assist in verifying your identity, for business analysis and to prevent or detect fraud and money laundering. We may record telephone calls for security and training purposes.

With other organisations.

Bristol & West Investments Plc will only disclose your personal information to other people or organisations if we have obtained your consent to do so or in exceptional circumstances where we are required or permitted to do so by law. We do not share or give any information to external companies for their own marketing purposes. Sometimes we may use external companies to carry out work on our behalf, but our contract with them will not allow them to use your information for anything else.

Occasionally, we may provide products or services in conjunction with another company. When this happens, we will inform you of the identity of the other organisation and how your information will be used by us and by them.

Risk Assessment

Credit checking and fraud prevention.

When you apply for a new account, we may use the information you give us to assess any business risk by taking a credit reference on you or underwriting your application, which base decisions on the information you have provided directly to us, any information we may hold about you and any information we may obtain from credit reference or other organisations. Where we use information from other organisations, we will tell you who they are.

This process also helps us to determine the facilities that we are able to offer you, so it is very important that the information you give us is accurate. If your application is declined, this will not be disclosed to the credit reference agency.

When considering your application, we search credit reference agency files and the voters roll to verify the identity of all applicants in order to protect you and Bristol & West Investments Plc. The agencies we use will add to your record details of our search which will include any previous and subsequent names and your application, whether or not your application proceeds. These details will be seen by other organisations that make searches. Please be aware that multiple credit searches may affect your ability to obtain credit elsewhere.

Access To Your Details

You have the right to have any inaccurate information corrected. Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you also have the right to see and receive a copy of any personal information we may hold on you. To apply for a copy of the information Bristol & West Investments Plc holds on you, please write to: The Compliance Officer, Bristol & West Investments Plc, 12 Eclipse Office Park, Staple Hill, Bristol BS16 5EL. We charge a fee of £10.00 for this service which must be received before we release the details.

Similarly, you have the right to see any personal data held by the credit reference or fraud prevention agencies. If you would like to apply for a copy, please contact them directly.

_____________________________________

THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE SECURING OTHER DEBTS AGAINST YOUR HOME.
YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE

Bristol & West Investments Plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, FSA No: 310199, Consumer Credit Licence No: 613766. Registered office address is: 12 Eclipse Office Park, Staple Hill, Bristol BS16 5EL, Registered in England No: 01610013

This site is compliant to the W3C XHTML 1.0 Transitional Standard
Site by Slap & Tickle | Graphical Version | Back to top of the page (Accesskey A)

Members of AMI, NACFB, CMV & ASTL