This Privacy Notice explains how MoneyPlus Advice uses your personal information. It’s important you understand what information we collect and how we use it. If you have any questions about our Privacy Notice, please get in touch using the details below.
Who We Are
MoneyPlus Advice is a trading style of MoneyPlus Group Limited (company registration 07310059). We are a commercial debt advice firm authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK’s financial services regulator. Our data protection registration is Z2422578 which you can check here. We will be the Data Controller for any information you provide to us. We are part of the MoneyPlus Holdings group of companies, which provides a range of products including legal services, insolvency solutions, and claims management. For more about our services, visit our About Us section.
What We Do
MoneyPlus Advice provides regulated debt advice services to our customers both on the phone and online. We use your personal information to identify the most suitable solution for your situation and, depending on what you choose, you may be offered a solution provided by MoneyPlus Advice or our sister companies, MoneyPlus Insolvency or Pathfinder Financial Services. You are under no obligation to take a solution offered by MoneyPlus Advice and in some circumstances, we may refer you to another debt advice firm to provide the best solution for you.
Why We Collect Your Information
If you use our website, we will collect information about you through cookies, including your IP address and user preferences. You can turn cookies off through your browser but if you do, our website may not work effectively. You can find out more in our Cookies Policy or by visiting aboutcookies.org.uk. If you contact us to obtain debt advice, our basis for collecting and using your information will be ‘contractual’ (in other words, you’ve contracted us to provide you with a debt advice service). In some cases, you may provide us with sensitive information such as medical conditions, which we call ‘special category data’. We will not record or share this information without your explicit consent.
The Personal Information We Collect
In order to provide our services, we will collect personal information about you as explained below.
| Information Type | What does this include? | Why do we need it? | Do I have to give this data? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Descriptors | Name, age, date of birth | This information allows us to identify and communicate with you, and is a requirement of our service. | Yes |
| Financial Information | Income amount, bank statements, credit history | We use this information to identify and arrange the most suitable solution for you, and to obtain and distribute payments. It is a requirement of our service. | Yes |
| Debt Details | Your creditors, debt level, default history | We need this information to determine how much you owe and to who. This allows us to identify the best solution for you and make payments. | Yes |
| Employment Information | Occupation, status, pay date | This information affects your eligibility for certain debt solutions, and helps us identify the best option for you. It is a requirement. | Yes |
| Life Information* | Marital status, your dependents (e.g. children) | This data helps us to identify the most suitable solution for you and affects your eligibility. It is a requirement. | Yes |
| Health Information | Medical conditions, disabilities, treatments | You do not have to give us these details but it helps us to tailor our services to support your needs (e.g. large print letters if you are partially sighted) | Yes |
* We may obtain information about children as part of our services. This is restricted to the age, education status, and residency of the children as this will affect your personal circumstances. This information is not shared with any other party.
How We Use Your Information
If you make an enquiry and/or complete an assessment either on the phone or online, we will use the information you provide to assess your eligibility for debt solutions and make a recommendation. If you enter into any solution provided by a MoneyPlus company, we will use your information to effectively run the service for you, communicate/negotiate with your creditors, manage payments with your bank, and make any necessary adjustments to support your personal needs. We refresh your information at least once per year in the annual review and we will monitor the performance of your solution in order to identify anyone who may need additional help or support, such as due to missed payments. We may also use your contact details to provide you with information on other services that we think would be suitable for you as explained in the Marketing section.
Who We Share Your Data With
When you complete an assessment with us, we will explain the options available to you and make a recommendation. Depending on the solution you choose, we may set up an account for you within the MoneyPlus group or refer you to an external solution provider who is better placed to help you. If you enter into a solution with MoneyPlus Advice, we will take over contact with your creditors and we will share information with them about you, your situation and your debts to facilitate this. We will also need to verify your identity. We use the credit reference agency Experian to conduct these checks, and we will get your consent before we do this. If you are referred to MoneyPlus by another provider or debt advice firm, we will notify the initial company you spoke to if you decide to enter into a solution with us. However, we do not share any further personal information about you with these companies. While we keep outsourcing activity to a minimum, we may occasionally use third party firms to help us provide our services, such as initial vetting of enquiries, quality monitoring, and scanning, some of whom may be located outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). We do not share or sell your information with any company outside of our group without your explicit consent or in certain legal circumstances, for example on request from a law enforcement agency or as a result of a court order.
How We Store Your Data
We are required to keep all relevant information about you and your solution for the full duration of our contractual relationship, and a further six years. We store this information electronically and securely. We conduct regular testing of our cyber and physical security procedures to ensure all data is secure. If at any time we believe a breach has occurred, we will conduct an investigation and notify you of any concerns. At the end of the six year period, we will securely destroy all information we no longer require. We may retain certain information for statistical purposes (e.g. age, county of residence, debt level, solution type) but this will be anonymised so you cannot be identified from it.
Your Rights
You have a number of rights under the Data Protection Act 2018. If you wish to enact any of these rights, please do not hesitate to contact us using the details below.
1. Right of Access:
You can request a copy of all personal data we hold about you, which we will provide within 30 days free of charge. We provide this information electronically so you must let us know if you would prefer this to be in hard copy. If you make multiple, excessive or vexatious requests, we reserve the right to charge an administration fee of £10 to provide your information.
2. Data Portability:
You can also request that we send an electronic copy of your key information to another company directly. This information will usually consist of your contact details, income and expenditure form, and recent payment history. We will do this within thirty days unless it is too technically complex, in which case it may take up to two months.
3. Correction of Information:
We regularly refresh your data to ensure it’s as accurate as possible but if you believe any of the information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out of date, let us know. We will check and respond within thirty days to let you know what we’ve done about it.
4. Restrict Processing:
You can request that we temporarily stop processing your personal information in certain circumstances, for example if you have told us that your information is inaccurate and are awaiting this to be changed. We will investigate and respond to you within one month.
5. Withdraw Your Consent:
You have the right to withdraw your consent for us to use your data at any time. However, this will result in your debt solution being cancelled. If you have provided us with special category data (e.g. medical information), you can withdraw your consent for us to use or share this. We will remove the data without impacting your solution, though any special arrangements made to support your condition will end.
6. Automated Decision Making:
We may use profiling and automated decision making to help us provide our service (e.g. our online review process). We have checks in place to oversee the accuracy of these procedures and to protect any vulnerable groups. You can challenge an automated decision or opt out of our automated processes at any time by contacting us.
7. Erasing Your Data:
You can request that we erase your information at any time and we will respond within one month to explain what action we have taken. However, please note that we are required to retain all information about your debt solution for the full duration of service plus a further six years, so the right to erasure is not applicable during this period.
Marketing
When we first speak with you, we’ll ask for your marketing preferences. We request that all customers check and update their preferences at least annually. You can choose to receive information about all, some or none of our services, and how you would prefer to be contacted. You can update your marketing preferences at any time through your online Portal or by contacting us. If you fail to provide your preferences, we may use our legitimate interest to contact you about other MoneyPlus group services that may be of interest to you, especially where it could help you save money. We will never share your details with any third party companies for marketing unless you have given us your explicit consent. You will receive information routinely from MoneyPlus Advice that is not marketing and is essential for the service we provide, such as statements, notifications and appointment confirmations. You cannot opt out of these communications.
Making a Complaint
If you are unhappy with how your data has been managed, contact us using the details below. We will investigate your concerns and respond to you as quickly as possible, in any event within eight weeks. If you remain dissatisfied after we have responded, you can refer your concerns to the UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office. Contacting Us If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us using the details below: Phone: 0161 837 4000 Email: mydata@moneyplus.com Address: MoneyPlus Advice, Riverside, New Bailey Street, Manchester, M3 5FS
Changes to This Privacy Notice
We regularly review and update our Privacy Notice to ensure it remains accurate. If you are a customer and we plan to change how we use your personal information in any material way, we will give you 14 days’ notice. You have the right to refuse any change but it may result in the termination of our service if your refusal affects our ability to provide the service to you. Last Updated: March 2022