Our Privacy Policy

Any reference to "we" or "us" in this Privacy Policy shall mean Wonga.com Limited and/or Wonga International S.A.

We believe you deserve the utmost respect when it comes to the security and use of your personal information, so we have described how we look after your information as clearly as possible.

Our Privacy Policy applies both while you, the customer has a loan from us and afterwards. Throughout this Privacy Policy “you” means the customer. Our Privacy Policy is regularly reviewed to make sure that we continue to serve your privacy interests. We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy, and these changes will be posted on our site. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. We are committed to keeping your personal information confidential and will only give it to others for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. Wonga International S.A. has been awarded TRUSTe's Privacy Seal signifying that this Privacy Policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe for compliance with TRUSTe's program requirements including transparency, accountability and choice regarding the collection and use of your personal information. The TRUSTe program does not cover information that may be collected through downloadable software. The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through www.wonga.com. If you have questions or complaints regarding our Privacy Policy or practices, please contact us at customercare@wonga.com. If you are not satisfied with our response you can contact TRUSTe.

TRUSTe's mission, as an independent third party, is to accelerate online trust among consumers and organizations globally through its leading privacy Trustmark and innovative trust solutions. Privacy is also very important to us as an organisation and we wish to be transparent and show our dedication to privacy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998, the data controllers are Wonga.com Limited and Wonga International S.A.

Security

We recognise how important it is to protect and manage the information you share with us. We protect that information using secure socket layer (SSL) encryption technology and by limiting employee access on a need-to-know basis. We store information 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.

Our security systems meet or exceed industry standards and we are constantly monitoring internet developments to ensure our systems evolve as required, however, sadly, no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.

Collecting your information

We collect information about you in a number of ways:

directly from you when an online application is completed;
when you give us information or provide feedback while the loan is outstanding (or afterwards);
from outside sources such as credit bureaux and customer service providers to help us with customer verification and credit-related decisions.

In addition to the personal and financial information you submit (or we collect), we may collect information about your computer including, where available, your IP address, operating system and browser type - for system administration and product improvement. For more information on information collected in this way please see our Cookies Policy. We may also record and/or monitor calls for quality checks and staff training. Such recordings may also be used to help us combat fraud.

Use of your information

Information we hold:

We will hold and use the following details about you:

your name, address, phone numbers, email address, date of birth, employment and banking and financial details;
demographic and lifestyle information;
information we receive when making a decision about you, your loan or application;
details of the loans you have and have had with us and all transactions;
details of when you contact us and when we contact you;

as well as any other information which we reasonably need to operate your account, make decisions about you or fulfil our regulatory obligations.

We may keep details of any phone number(s) that you call us from and use them to contact you.

If you provide us with any debit card number(s), either during application or subsequently, we will keep the details of the card(s) and may use the details to take further payments both on your current loan and on any subsequent loans.

When we are managing your account, we may be given sensitive information such as information about your health and medical information which we may hold and process.

References to personal information include all of the information above whether obtained from you, from a Credit Reference Agency or Fraud Prevention Agency, from the internet or from any other source.

Information we share

We will keep your personal information confidential and only share it with others for the purposes explained in this policy. We have trusted relationships with carefully selected third parties who perform services on our behalf. Examples of service providers we use are a payment processor and an email service provider.. All service providers are bound by contract to maintain the security of your personal information and to use it only as permitted by us.

We may share information about you:

within the Wonga Group;
with any firm, organisation or person we use to help us operate our lending business, to collect payments and recover debts or to provide a service on our behalf;
any firm, organisation or person in conjunction with whom we provide products and services;
any person who has told us and who we reasonably believe to be your parent, carer or helper where you are unable to handle your own affairs because of mental capacity or other similar issues;
any payment system we may use;
certain authorities in order to detect and prevent terrorism (including to authorities outside the UK) if a payment is processed through a global payment system;
any person to whom we sell or transfer (or enter into negotiations to sell or transfer) our business or any of our rights or obligations under any agreement we may have with you. If the transfer or sale goes ahead, the transferee or purchaser may use your personal information in the same way as us;
regulators, ombudsmen or other authorities, including tax authorities, including those overseas, where we are requested by them to do so;
Credit Reference Agencies and Fraud Prevention Agencies or any similar organisation which provides a centralised application matching service that collects information from and about mortgage and/or credit applications, for the purpose of preventing and detecting fraud. We may also provide information to third parties to help them to make decisions about whether to lend to you, allow you extended payment terms or otherwise do business with you;
Suppliers of goods and services with whom we have an arrangement to enable you to buy their goods and services using a loan from us.

How we use your information

We will use your information to:

search Credit Reference Agencies’ and Fraud Prevention Agencies’ records (including information from overseas);
make, or assist in making, credit decisions about you, assess lending (and insurance) risks and to check the details that you have let us and others have;
operate and manage your account and manage any application, agreement or correspondence you may have with us;
carry out, monitor and analyse our business;
contact you by email, SMS, post phone or in any other way about our products and services, unless you tell us that you prefer not to receive marketing;
to identify, prevent, detect or tackle fraud, money laundering, terrorism and other crimes;
to form a view of you as an individual and to identify, develop or improve products, that may be of interest to you;
carry out market research, business and statistical analysis;
provide information to independent external bodies such as governmental departments and agencies, universities and similar to carry out research;
carry out audits;
perform other administrative and operational purposes including the testing of systems;
trace your whereabouts;
recover any debt you owe us; and
comply with our regulatory obligations.

Your data may also be used for other purposes for which you give your permission or where we are permitted to do so by law or it is in the public interest to disclose the information or is otherwise permitted under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs) and Fraud Prevention Agencies (FPAs)

When you apply to us for a loan, we will check the following records about you (and others where applicable):

our own;
those at CRAs;
those at FPAs

Whether or not your application is successful, when CRAs receive a search from us they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders. Large numbers of applications within a short time period may affect your ability to obtain credit.

They, and we, may also link your records with those of your financial associate(s) including any previous and subsequent names, these links will remain on your and their files until you or they tell the agency you are no longer financially linked and the agency accepts this.

They supply to us both public (including the electoral register, county court judgements and bankruptcies) and shared credit and fraud prevention information including information about previous applications and the conduct of your accounts in your and your financial associate(s)’ name(s).

Information on applications will be sent to CRAs and will be recorded by them.

Information held by CRAs and FPAs will be disclosed to us and to other organisations to, for example:

prevent fraud and money laundering and to check and assess applications for credit, credit related or other facilities;
recover debts that you owe and trace your whereabouts;
manage credit accounts and other facilities and decide appropriate credit limits;
verify your identity;
make decisions on credit and other facilities for you, your financial associate (s), members of your household or your business.
checking details of job applicants and employees.

CRAs and FPAs will use your information for statistical analysis about credit and other fraud.

When you borrow from us, we will give details of your loan and how you manage it to CRAs. We may make periodic searches at CRAs and FPAs to manage our relationship with you.

If you borrow and do not repay in full and on time, CRAs will record the outstanding debt and, in some cases, the length of time that the debt remains outstanding. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs and FPAs to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe. Records remain on file for 6 years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted and may affect your ability to get credit in the future.

We will give you prior notice of a default being registered on your credit reference file. However, we may not always give you notice if we plan to take court action.

If you give us false or inaccurate information and we have reasonable grounds to suspect fraud or we identify fraud we may record this and may also pass this information to FPAs and other organisations involved in crime and fraud prevention.

We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies.

The Credit Reference Agencies that we use are Callcredit Limited (registration number 03961870) with registered office at One Park Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS3 1EP; and Experian Limited (registration number 00653331) with registered office at Landmark House, Experian Way, NG2 Business Park, Nottingham, NG80 1ZZ.

The Fraud Prevention Agency that we use is CIFAS, with registered office at 6th Floor Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9LT. You can contact CIFAS at www.cifas.org.uk/contact_us_form.

Transfer of Information

We may transfer your personal information abroad to other countries outside the UK, including to other countries in the EEA, Switzerland and South Africa. If we do so, we will ensure the information is held securely to standards as least as good as those in the UK and only used for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

Incomplete Applications

If you commence an application with us but this application is not completed, we will (except where you have agreed to receive occasional updates and information form us) retain your information for no more than 30 days in order for us to contact you about your application and to make it easier for you to proceed with it, if you decide to do so. Where you have agreed to receive occasional updates and information from us, we will retain your name and email address only for that purpose.

Declined Applications

If we are unable to offer you a loan when you apply, we will keep your information for 18 months. We will keep your information for statistical analysis, fraud prevention and credit scoring purposes. During this time, we may also email you about our products and services.

Completed/Approved Applications

We will generally retain your information for as long as needed to provide you services. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Access to your information

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you have a right to access certain personal records we hold about you. This is called a Data Subject Access Request, which you can make by writing to customercare@wonga.com. A fee is payable.

We want to make sure that your information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is inaccurate.

You have a right under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 to request CRAs to provide you with information that they hold about you. A fee is payable.

Contact from Wonga

As part of the application process, we ask you whether we may contact you about our products and services by telephone, post, email and SMS (or other reasonable method). If you ticked “yes” but no longer wish to receive such communications, please visit the My Account page, login and change your communication preference at any time, or follow the instructions in the message itself.

Third party links

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 for them.

Blog/Forum

Our site offers publicly accessible blogs. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of your personal information from our blog, contact us at customercare@wonga.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

Age

To register with us you must be 18 years of age or older. Minors are strictly forbidden from using the service.

Last updated in April 2013