Credit Reporting Policy

This is the Credit Reporting Policy of Marubeni Equipment Finance (Oceania) Pty Ltd (ABN 79 151 545 434) and Marubeni Corporation (individually and together, ‘we’ ‘us’ or ‘MEF’).

This Credit Reporting Policy (CR Policy) describes how we comply with the credit reporting obligations imposed by the Privacy Act 1988 (the Act) including the Credit Reporting Code under section 26S of the Act.

The Act and this CR Policy do not apply to credit provided to companies or other entities who are not individuals. However, it will apply where you, the prospective customer are an individual, or we require a director or another authorised individual to guarantee the credit we are proposing to provide to a customer which is a company or other entity. The CR Policy applies only in respect of the use we make of your or the individual’s credit-related information, as part of our assessment of the suitability of you or the individual as a guarantor of the customer.

We may conduct a credit check on the customer (if an individual), or, if a company or other entity its directors, partners, guarantors or other authorised representatives) before we approve the provision of credit for the customer.

In this Credit Reporting Policy, “credit-related information” means credit information, credit eligibility information and CRB derived information as those terms are defined in the Act. References to you or your will be to you in your capacity as customer, a director or secretary of the customer or a guarantor, of the customer, as the case may be.

Collection of credit-related information

MEF may collect, hold, use and disclose credit-related information about you. We may obtain this information from you or from third parties, including from credit reporting bodies (CRBs) and other credit providers, in order to assist us in determining whether the MEF group will provide any products or services to you (or to your related company or other entity) on credit.

We may collect various items of credit-related information about you including the following:

• your name, current and prior addresses, and contact details;
• your date of birth, gender, marital status and number of dependants;
• your banking and/or credit card details;
• a statement of your assets and liabilities and other financial information, together with supporting documentation;
• other personal identification information;
• your driver’s licence number and, if relevant, the name of your employer;
• details of your previous applications you may have made for consumer credit and/or commercial credit;
• information about any credit provided to you by other credit providers (such as financial institutions, utilities or telecommunications providers), including any credit that you have applied for or guaranteed;
• details of your credit history, including details of any credit defaults and any repayments missed or late repayments;
• any credit rating or credit assessment score that we have calculated or that is provided to us by a CRB;
• details of any credit-related court proceedings or insolvency applications that relate to you;
• – the fact that any instalments of credit payments are overdue or that your repayments are no longer overdue; and
• – the fact that credit provided to you by third parties has been paid or otherwise discharged.

Use and disclosure of credit-related information

MEF may use the credit-related information that is collected and held by us to help us decide whether or not to provide credit to you (or to your related company or other entity). We may also use this information to derive or calculate a credit assessment score in relation to you, which we will then use to help us in conducting our assessment of your creditworthiness.

The purposes for which we use and disclose your credit-related information may include:

• using this information to assess any application that you make to us for credit in relation to the products or services that we supply to you (or to your related company or other entity) or which are supplied to you (or to your related company or other entity) by a third party for whom we act as agent;
• using your credit-related information to collect payments that are owed to us in respect of any products or services that we have previously supplied to you (or to your related company or other entity) on credit;
• disclosing your credit-related information to any other MEF group members that are also are considering whether to provide credit to you (or to your related company or other entity);
• where you have offered to guarantee credit that we have offered to provide to your related company or other entity, to assess your suitability as a guarantor of that credit;
• disclosing your credit-related information to a third party that you or we ask to act as a guarantor of any credit provided to you;
• disclosing your credit-related information to the CRBs that we deal with, including Dunn & Bradstreet and Veda. CRBs collect different types of credit-related information about individuals and use that information to provide a credit-related service to their customers (including to us);
  • disclosing your credit-related information to other third parties that provide services to us. These might include debt collection and credit management agencies, other third parties that process applications for credit made to us and the MEF group’s professional advisers (including lawyers, accountants, auditors and bankers);
  • disclosing your credit-related information to other members of the MEF group or to our contractors and service providers;
  • disclosing your credit-related information to financiers for whom we act as agent;
  • disclosing your credit-related information where the provision to you of products and services involving insurance and finance means that we are required to pass your credit-related information to the relevant insurers and financiers;
  • disclosing your credit-related information to rating agencies for the purpose of funding, refinancing, sales or securitisation, including associated due diligence and review of the products and related services we provide to you;
  • disclosing your credit-related information to other credit providers which provide, or are considering providing, credit to you (or to your related company or other entity);
  • using and disclosing credit-related information that we hold about you to assess and respond to any access or correction requests that you lodge with us;
  • where we are consulted by a CRB or another credit provider about an access or correction request that you have lodged with one of them, to respond to that consultation request;
  • where you complain to the Information Commissioner or any provider of a recognised external dispute resolution scheme about our treatment of your credit-related information, to respond to that complaint and to seek legal or other professional advice in relation to your complaint;
  • using and disclosing credit-related information that we hold about you as required by law or the order of a court or tribunal; and
  • where you otherwise expressly consent to the use or disclosure of credit-related information pertaining to yourself.

  Other matters relating to your credit-related information

  Where required by law, we will make a written note (which may be kept in electronic form) of any use or disclosure that we make relating to your credit-related information.

  If you or your related company or other entity make an application for credit to us, or offer to guarantee credit that we propose to provide to your related company or other entity, and we subsequently refuse your application or offer based on information provided to us by a CRB about you, then we will (if required by law to do so) inform you of this. If this happens we would provide you with the name and contact details of that CRB and any other information required by law to be provided to you.

  Security and quality of your credit-related information

  We take all reasonable measures to make sure that the credit-related information that we collect, use, hold and disclose about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date and (in relation to the purpose of our use or disclosure) is relevant to that purpose.

  We also take all reasonable steps to ensure that the credit-related information that we hold about you is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Except as noted below, we will store all credit-related information that we collect or hold about you in an electronic system located in Australia. This storage will be secure.

  We store information in different ways, including in hardcopy and electronic form. We have implemented certain organisational controls to help us protect your credit-related information from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These include implementing information technology security policies and systems. MEF implements all necessary policies in regard to the protection and appropriate use of your credit-related information. We are also bound by confidentiality provisions that apply to information they accessed by our staff or contractors in the course of their employment or engagement.

  MEF may also disclose your credit-related information to financiers for whom we act as agent, other third party service providers and members of the MEF group that are located in one or more overseas countries or hold information in overseas countries, including our related bodies corporate in Japan, as well as other countries which we may notify you of from time to time (including at the time of collecting your information.

  Access and correction of your credit-related information

  You have a right to request access to any credit-related information that MEF holds about you. If you would like to do this, please contact us using the contact details set out at the foot of this CR Policy.

  Where we hold credit-related information about you, we provide you with access to this information upon request, including by posting or emailing it to you if you request access to your information in those particular manners. We will generally provide access to you within a reasonable time but may refuse to provide access where we are permitted to do so by law.

  You also have a right to request that we correct any credit-related information that we hold about you if you believe that this information is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. You can make such a correction request by using the contact details set out below. We will respond to your request within 30 days (or such longer period as you may agree or we may request).

  MEF will not charge you for making a request for access or for making any corrections to your credit-related information. However, we may in some circumstances charge a reasonable administrative fee to cover our costs of providing access to you.

  If we cannot respond to your correction request without consulting with other credit providers or CRBs in relation to your request, we may do so and these bodies are permitted by law to assist us in resolving your correction request.

  If we agree to your request, we will promptly correct any credit-related information that we hold about you that we are satisfied is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. If we do correct any of your credit-related information at your request, we will inform you and each other credit provider and credit reporting body to which we have previously disclosed that information that we have corrected your information. Where we disclosed your credit-related information after you made a complaint but before it was resolved, we will tell the recipient that you have made such a complaint and we will subsequently inform that entity of the outcome of your correction request.

  If MEF has any other reasons for suspecting that credit-related information that we hold about you has become inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, we may independently decide to correct this information without consulting you. If we do this, we will take reasonable steps to notify that correction to you and to any other entities to which we have previously disclosed that credit-related information (unless it is impracticable for us to do so).

  Complaints

  You have a right to complain about any failure by us to comply with the Act or the Credit Reporting Code in relation to our handling of your credit-related information.

  If your complaint relates to our failure to provide access to or to correct any credit-related information that we hold about you, you may lodge a complaint directly with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) (for more information, please see www.oaic.gov.au).

  If you have a complaint in relation to MEF’s handling of your credit-related information that is not mentioned above, you must first lodge your complaint with us via the contract details specified below, and provide us with details of the incident so that we can investigate it.

  Our procedure for investigating and dealing with complaints (other than those that can be made directly to the OAIC) is as follows.

  • Complaints should be made in writing and submitted to MEF using the contact details below.
  • We will treat your complaint confidentially. Our representative will investigate your complaint and contact you within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint to discuss your complaint and the options available to you to resolve it.
  • We will endeavour to make sure that your complaint is resolved within a reasonable time (and in any event within the time required by the Act, if applicable).
  • If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint or our proposed resolution, you have a right to lodge a further complaint with the OAIC. This body will then provide you with further information about the next steps in their complaints process.

  Where your complaint relates to the correction of your credit-related information, and the resolution of your complaint requires us to correct your information, MEF will inform each other credit provider and CRB that we have previously disclosed your information to that that you have made a correction complaint in relation to that information and that we have corrected your information as a result of the outcome of that complaint. However, if it is impracticable or illegal for us to do give such a notification, then MEF cannot be required by law to give this notification and will not do so.

  Contacting MEF

  We have appointed a dedicated Privacy Officer with responsibility for managing our handling of your credit-related information.

  If you have any questions about this CR Policy or if you have any concerns or a complaint regarding the treatment of your credit-related information, you should contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.

  Post:

  Marubeni Equipment Finance (Oceania) Pty Limited
  PO Box H1
  Australia Square NSW 1215
  Ph (02) 9009 6500
  Email [email protected]

  Changes to our Credit Reporting Policy

  MEF may change this CR Policy from time to time, including in order to comply with future amendments to the Act, the Credit Reporting Code and/or related laws and regulations. Any updated versions of this CR Policy will be effective from the date of posting on our website.