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Our Credit Information Policy

This policy exists alongside our Privacy Policy and sets out how we manage credit-related personal information about individuals collected in connection with a credit application or a credit facility. We refer to this information as ‘credit-related information’.

We manage credit-related information in accordance with the credit reporting provisions in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code (Code) made under that Act.

We are a credit provider for the purposes of the Privacy Act.

The Privacy Act and this policy do not apply to information about companies or other entities who are not individuals.

Credit-related information is a broad term that describes a number of different categories of information about an individual that are related to credit. It can include information about the individual's credit eligibility that we have collected directly or information obtained from a credit reporting body. It may also include information which is derived from information held by us or by a credit reporting body (such as a credit score).  

A list of the main categories of credit-related information that we may collect or hold is set out in section 2 below. 

As a credit provider, we may collect credit-related information about you in certain circumstances where you are associated with a third party who has been provided with commercial credit by us, or who is applying for commercial credit with us. This includes commercial credit in connection with a business (where you are associated with that business, for example as a director), and covers information about you as a guarantor (or proposed guarantor) of a commercial credit facility. This may involve us conducting a credit check on you (with Equifax) as an individual. 

We will only collect, use or disclose credit-related information as permitted by law and in accordance with our policies (including this policy). 

Credit-related information which we collect and hold may include: 

  • identification information such as your name(s), date and place of birth, contact details (personal and/or business), address, drivers’ license and passport details, telephone number and email address; 

  • credit liability information about individuals (including consumer credit liability); 

  • repayment history; 

  • financial hardship information; 

  • default history; 

  • information about arrangements that have been entered into to manage overdue payments; 

  • payment information; 

  • details about your solvency and current and previous credit arrangements, guarantee arrangements, credit enquiries and applications; 

  • details about adverse court proceedings and judgments, personal bankruptcy and insolvency information (including information about an individual recorded on the National Personal Insolvency Index) and other publicly available information in relation to your credit worthiness; 

  • credit reporting information about you in the form of a credit report received from a credit reporting body; and 

  • information derived by credit reporting bodies or by us, including from the information set out above (including credit scores, ratings and assessments relating to your credit worthiness). 

In addition to collecting personal information about you in accordance with our Privacy Policy, we may collect, hold, use and disclose certain credit-related information about you. We may obtain this information from you, your advisers or authorised representatives or from third parties, including from an application for credit, credit reporting bodies, other credit providers, information service providers or from public sources, in order to assist us in determining whether we will provide, or continue to provide, any commercial credit to you or your associated entity. 

If you (or your associated entity) ask us for credit, or you propose to provide a guarantee in relation to credit, we may check your credit reports. We might collect information about you from, and give it to, credit reporting bodies as permitted by law. We may share your credit-related information with them so they can provide credit reports to others. We may not need your consent to do so (see section titled "Our Statement of Notifiable Matters" of this policy for more information). We currently deal with the following credit reporting body: 

Equifax Pty Ltd
PO Box 964, North Sydney NSW 2059
Telephone: 138 332 or 1300 762 207
Website: www.equifax.com.au or www.mycreditfile.com.au 

You can request a copy of Equifax’s credit reporting policy from its website or by contacting them directly using the details set out above.

We may use this information to derive or calculate a credit assessment score in relation to you, which will 
then help us in conducting our assessment of your credit worthiness.

We may also use the credit-related information that is collected and held by us to help us decide whether to 
provide commercial credit to your associated entity.

We may use or disclose your credit-related information to: 

  • assess your application for commercial credit or an application for commercial credit by your associated entity; 

  • collect overdue payments owed to us in respect of commercial credit; 

  • assess your suitability as a guarantor in relation to an application for commercial credit by your associated entity; 

  • manage our relationship with you, including administering and managing commercial credit that we have provided to you (or your associated entity); 

  • work with our service providers; 

  • create assessments and ratings of your credit worthiness in relation to commercial credit provided to or applied for by you or your associated entity, or in relation to commercial credit guaranteed or proposed to be guaranteed by you; 

  • disclose the information to the credit reporting body that we deal with (Equifax, whose details are set out in section titled "How we collect and hold credit-related information" above). A credit reporting body collects different types of credit-related information about individuals and uses that information to provide a credit-related service to their customers (including to us). Information may be given to a credit reporting body before, during or after the provision of credit and is limited to credit-related information we collect. We may provide information to a credit reporting body for each review of your facility and we may obtain a credit report from a credit reporting body for the purpose of such review. Please read section titled "Our Statement of Notifiable Matters" below which includes our Statement of Notifiable Matters and sets out further detail on what personal information we may disclose to Equifax; 

  • disclose it to other third parties that provide services to us (or to you on our behalf), such as professional advisers, contractors, agents and other third parties that process applications for credit that have been made to us; 

  • disclose it, with your consent, to other credit providers that provide, or are considering providing, credit to you (or to your associated entity) or for other purposes permitted by law; 

  • assess and respond to any access or correction requests that you make to us; 

  • respond to a consultation request by a credit reporting body or another credit provider about an access or correction request that you have made to those entities; or 

  • deal with your complaints and enquiries, including to respond to those complaints and enquiries and to seek legal or other professional advice in relation to them. 

We may also use or disclose your credit-related information: 

  • as required or authorised by law or the order of a court or tribunal; or 

  • where you have consented to the use or disclosure. 

The above referenced third party entities may in turn disclose your credit-related information to any other 
entities as described in their privacy policies, credit information policies or equivalent statements.

We do not currently disclose credit-related information to entities that do not have an Australian link.

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

  • you (or your associated entity) make an application for credit to us; or 

  • you offer to guarantee credit that we propose to provide to your associated entity, and we subsequently refuse the application or offer based on information provided to us by a credit reporting body about you, we will inform you of this and provide you with the name and contact details of that body and any other information required by law to be provided to you. 

Under the Code, there are several “notifiable matters” which we must ensure that you are aware of at or before we collect your personal information where that information is likely to be disclosed to Equifax. 

Where we collect information about you from a credit reporting body in relation to an application for commercial credit by you, or because you are or are proposed to be a guarantor in relation to commercial credit, your consent to the disclosure being made is not required. In addition, a record of the information request may be used and disclosed (including in reports provided to credit providers) for the purposes of assessing your credit worthiness, including calculation of a credit score or credit rating (subject to any other legal limitations), and the information request may affect your credit score or credit rating calculated by Equifax. 

Equifax may include the information in reports provided to credit providers to assist them to assess your credit worthiness.  

If you fail to meet your payment obligations or commit a serious credit infringement, we may be entitled to disclose this to Equifax.  

Section titled “How we collect and hold credit-related information” of this Credit Information Policy sets out how you can obtain Equifax’s policy about its management of credit-related information.

You have a right to access your credit eligibility information from us, ask us to correct certain credit-related information, and make a complaint in accordance with section titled "How you can access or correct your credit-related information" and section titled "Making a complaint" below.

You also have the right to request Equifax not to: 

  • use your credit-related information to pre-screen your eligibility to receive direct marketing from credit providers; and 

  • use or disclose your credit-related information for a period, if you believe on reasonable grounds that you have been, or are likely to be, a victim of fraud. In these circumstances Equifax may also offer you a ban notification service. A ban notification service is a free of charge service offered by a credit reporting body where the body will notify you of requests from a credit provider, mortgage insurer or trade insurer for credit reporting information relating to you when a ban period is in effect. 

You may request a copy of this Statement of Notifiable Matters in an alternative form, such as hard copy, if you prefer. 

The security of your credit-related information is important to us and we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We hold credit-related information in different forms securely in the manner detailed in our Privacy Policy.

In any circumstance where we intend to disclose credit-related information to overseas recipients, we will comply with applicable law and practices relating to overseas disclosure detailed in our Privacy Policy.

When your credit-related information is no longer required, we may destroy or delete it (if permitted by law to do so) in the manner detailed in our Privacy Policy.

We take reasonable steps to ensure 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.

You have a right to request access to any credit eligibility information and seek correction of any credit-related information that we hold about you. If you would like to make an access request or a correction request, please contact us using the contact details at section titled "How to contact us" below. There is no cost involved.

Access requests
If you make an access request for any credit eligibility information we hold about you, we will provide you with access to this information (unless there is a legal reason not to do so) in a clear and accessible manner within a reasonable period (generally within 30 calendar days). If we decide not to provide you with access to your information, we will provide a reason for this decision.

In order to ensure you have the most up-to-date information you should also request access to the creditreporting information held by credit reporting bodies about you. For example, you may request access to 
that information by contacting Equifax on the details provided above.

Correction requests

You 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.

If you make a correction request of any credit-related information that we hold about you, we will help you correct the credit-related information within 30 calendar days. If we cannot make a correction in that timeframe, we will ask you for extra time. We may be required to consult with other credit providers or credit reporting bodies which are permitted by law to assist us in resolving your correction request. We will notify you of a decision about a correction request within five business days of the decision.

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 your credit-related information at your request, we will inform you and we will also inform each other credit provider and credit reporting body to which we have previously disclosed that information that we have corrected your information (unless giving such notice is impracticable or is prohibited under an Australian law or court/tribunal order).  

If we do not agree that your credit-related information is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, we will provide you with a written notice including the reasons why we do not agree with you. If your request to correct your credit-related information is denied, you also have the right to ask us to make a note of your requested correction with the information.

If we have 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).

If your request to correct credit-related information relates to information that:  

  • is incorrect because of fraud (including identity theft); or  

  • is about matters such as defaults, repayment history, financial hardship or amendments to your payment arrangements, and this information only exists because of circumstances beyond your control (such as natural disaster, domestic abuse or bank error), 

then you should tell us about this when you request the correction (or if you make a request to Equifax you should tell Equifax about that). We will comply with any additional obligations under the Code in relation to such a request. 

Complaints about access or correction of information

If you have a complaint regarding our failure to provide access to or to correct any credit-related information that we hold about you, you may lodge it with us or directly to the:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
GPO Box 5288, SYDNEY NSW 2001 
Phone: 1300 363 992
Website: www.oaic.gov.au or email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au. 

The OAIC will then provide you with further information about the next steps in their complaints process. You are not required to let us first assist you with your complaint. However, the OAIC might refer the complaint to us for resolution before they assist you. Further information about making a privacy complaint to the OAIC is at: http://www.oaic.gov.au/.

Other complaints in relation to our handling of your credit-related information
You have the right to make a complaint if you have a concern in relation to our handling of your credit-related information. If you wish to make a complaint regarding our handling of your credit-related information (but it is not a complaint relating to access or correction, as described above), you must first lodge it with us. Please lodge your complaint in writing using the contact details below and provide us with details of the incident so that we can investigate your complaint. For complaints made directly to us, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint (and set out how we will deal with it) within seven calendar days and we will endeavour to understand and resolve your complaint as soon as possible, and in any case within 30 calendar days, in accordance with our Complaints Policy. If we cannot resolve the matter within 30 calendar days, we will contact you and explain the reason for the delay, the expected timeframe to resolve the complaint and seek your agreement to extend the period for resolving your complaint. 

If your complaint relates to the correction of your credit-related information and the resolution of your complaint requires us to correct your information, we will inform each other credit provider and credit reporting body that we have previously disclosed your information to, that you have made a correction complaint in relation to that information and that we have corrected your information because of the outcome of that complaint. However, we will not give such notification if doing so is impracticable or prohibited under an Australian law or court / tribunal order. 

If you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint or our proposed resolution, you have a right to lodge a further complaint to the OAIC (contact details are listed on the website above). 

This policy is subject to regular review. Any changes to it will be notified publicly by us posting an updated 
version on our website, and the changes will be effective from that date.

Any information we hold will be governed by the most current Credit Information Policy and Privacy Policy
where applicable.

This policy was last updated in February 2025.

If you wish to contact us regarding our handling of your personal information or any of the matters covered in this policy, you can contact our Privacy Officers  by:
• Post: Attention: Privacy Officer, Export Finance Australia, Level 11, 22 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000  
• Phone: +61 (0)2 8273 5333 
• Email: privacy@exportfinance.gov.au