‘5 Financial’ is a trading name of 5 Wealth Management Pty Ltd.
At 5 Financial, we recognise that your privacy is very important to you. We handle personal information about our clients every day, and consequently we take our obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Privacy Amendment Act 2012 very seriously. The following statement summarises these obligations and should address any potential concerns you have in relation to how your personal information may be collected, stored, used and disclosed by us. If you would like further information about how we manage the personal information we gather from you, please contact our Managing Director or Head of Wealth Management by phone (02 9739 6555) or email (admin[at]5financial.com.au).
Collection
In the conduct of our business as financial planners and advisers, we collect and hold personal information about our clients such as current and previous names and contact details; date of birth; marital, housing and tax residency status; dependants; employment details; income and expenses; tax information; bank, superannuation and insurance details; assets and liabilities; benefits received, and estate plans. In addition, we retain a copy of identity documents such as a drivers’ licence, passport, birth certificate etc. Most of this information is required by us in order to develop a comprehensive and appropriate financial strategy to progress our clients from their current financial situation to where they’d like to be within a given time frame and to ensure our advice is in our clients’ best interests. Much of it is also required to meet our legal obligations under the Corporations Act 2001, FOFA legislation and Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism (AML/CTF) laws. We will only collect information from you that is necessary for us to perform our business activities and comply with regulations. Due to the nature of our business, it is not possible to offer personal financial advice to clients without establishing their identity and collecting relevant personal information.
We will only collect information from you by lawful and fair means, without being unreasonably intrusive. This may be by questionnaire, phone call, email or in a face to face meeting. Before collecting that information from you, we will endeavour to explain why we are collecting the information, how it will be used, to whom it might be disclosed and the constraints on our service if you do not provide the personal information requested or if the information you provide is inaccurate.
We will primarily collect personal information about you from you. However, in some cases, it may be necessary to collect personal information about you from third parties such as superannuation funds, your accountant or tax adviser, your employer, your investment broker and/or your mortgage or credit lender. We will always seek your consent before gathering personal information about you from third parties.
If you provide personal information to us about someone else, you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that information to us and that we may collect, use, store and disclose such information in accordance with the provisions of this statement.
Storage, Use and Disclosure
We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss, as well as unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Our own computers are all password protected, passwords are changed regularly and all 5 Financial systems are protected by a firewall.
Our client data is stored on our proprietary password protected CRM program, managed by a third-party data storage provider using Amazon cloud Web Services (AWS) to host its application. AWS offers secure network architecture, and secure access points which are connected by a cryptographic protocol designed to protect against eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery. Amazon cloud data centres are sited in geographical regions which are low risk in terms of natural calamities.
Your personal information is accessible to any members of the 5 Financial team engaged by you (wealth managers, accounting and tax specialists, estate planners, administration staff), all of whom are based at our Head Office in Rhodes.
We will only use your personal information for the main purpose we stated when collecting the data, except when you instruct or consent to us using that personal information for another purpose, where the other purpose is related to the main purpose and you would reasonably expect us to use the information held for that other purpose. An example might be the provision of personal information to your tax accountant for completion of your tax return, or to Centrelink for the calculation of benefits. We will always obtain your instructions and/or consent before supplying such personal information to a third party, unless we are required by law to disclose such information to, for example, Courts, Tribunals or law enforcement agencies. If we are required to use or disclose personal information in accordance with an enforcement related activity, we will keep a record of the date of the use or disclosure, details of the information that was used or disclosed and the body conducting the enforcement related activity.
In order to conduct our business activities, we may provide access to your personal information to third parties with whom we have a business relationship, for example, database managers, para-planners, credit providers, platform providers, brokers and insurance companies. If you make a complaint about our services which we are unable to resolve to your satisfaction, and the matter proceeds to external dispute resolution, we may disclose your personal information to lawyers and /or the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) of which we are a member to facilitate the investigation and settlement of the complaint. By referring the matter to an external resolution scheme, you are consenting to your personal information being used in such circumstances.
We do not disclose clients’ personal information to any overseas recipients unless required to do so by legislation or information sharing agreements entered into by the Australian Government with other countries, such as the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
Access and correction
If you ask, we will advise you of the personal information we hold about you. We will facilitate access to your information by allowing a personal inspection or by providing copies or a summary of relevant documents, depending upon what is most appropriate in the circumstances. Unless impracticable, we will endeavour to provide access to your personal information within 30 days of your request. Any charge we make for providing access to our records will be reasonable and we will advise you of the likely charge in advance.
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect and hold about you is accurate, up-to-date, complete, relevant and not misleading. We will review your personal information with you on a regular basis. We may also obtain updated information about you from third parties. If you (or a third party) provide evidence that the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date or incomplete, we will take steps to correct it before using the information.
Marketing
We do not disclose our clients’ personal information to third parties for the purpose of research or marketing. We may however use your personal information to guide our own marketing communications. Where practicable we will seek your consent before we use your personal information for this purpose. You may tell us at any time that you do not wish to receive any further direct marketing materials, whereupon we will stop sending you such materials. In accordance with the Spam Act, should you wish to unsubscribe from commercial electronic messages from 5 Financial, you may do so at any time through the “unsubscribe” facility on that type of electronic message. If you do not unsubscribe, 5 Financial will continue to send you information by electronic message and may also use messaging methods other than email.
Cookies
When you visit our website, we may use cookies to identify your browser so that next time you visit our website we remember your log in details. A cookie is a small file which remains on your computer and contains information enabling our website to recognise your browser. Cookies are also used to monitor visits to our website. If you do not wish to use cookies, you can adjust the settings on your browser to reject cookies or notify you when they are being used.
Data Breaches
In the unlikely event of access to or disclosure of your personal information held within any of our data management systems by unauthorised parties, we are bound by the requirements of the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2017. If there is any possibility of harm occurring to any individual(s) as a result of a suspected or actual breach, the individuals concerned will be notified as soon as we become aware of such a breach. The notification will include the type of information which may have been compromised, and the steps we believe should be taken, as well as the steps 5 Financial has and will be taking to prevent a recurrence of the problem. We are also bound to inform the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) of any suspected or actual breach which could result in serious harm to individual clients.
Complaints resolution
We are committed to providing a fair and responsible system for handling client complaints relating to privacy issues. If at any time you have any concerns or complaints in relation to privacy and the way your personal information is being gathered, stored, used or disclosed, please contact Matthew Farrell, Managing Director, on 02 9739 6555 or admin@5financial.com.au. We will seek to address any concerns you have through our internal complaints handling process, but if you wish to take matters further, you may refer your concerns to our external disputes resolution scheme, Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au). Our AFCA membership number is 12593.
Updates to our Privacy Policy
We are constantly reviewing our statements and policies in order to keep up to date with relevant legislation and client expectations. Consequently, this policy may be amended from time to time as the need arises. The latest version will always be available on our website (www.5financial.com.au), and upon request.
February 2019