We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our privacy commitment in respect of personal information we hold about you and what we do with that information.
The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to outline how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information to ensure we comply with our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020. This Privacy Policy applies in addition to, and does not limit, our rights and obligations under the Privacy Act and other applicable laws.
References in this Privacy Policy to “we“, “us” and “our” means Staircase Financial Management Limited and our Financial Adviser(s).
By providing us with personal information, engaging us to provide you with services, or by using our website, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy and consent to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy (as amended from time to time).
We may modify or amend this Privacy Policy from time to time for any reason by publishing an updated version on this page. If we make any material or significant changes, we will post a prominent notice in notifying users on our website or provide you with notice of such changes via email. By continuing to engage us or use our website, you will be deemed to have accepted the updated Privacy Policy.
When we refer to personal information, we mean any information that identifies, or is capable of identifying, a natural person. This includes, for example, your name, date of birth, address, contact details, occupation, insurance claims information, and lifestyle and health/medical information.
If you engage us to provide services to you, we may collect personal information about your financial situation in order to recommend or advise on our products that we are permitted to advise on.
If you can’t be identified (for example, where personal information has been aggregated and anonymised) then this Privacy Policy does not apply).
We collect information from you in a number of ways when you request or use our products or services. For example, you might provide us with information:
Where possible and practical to do so, we will collect personal information directly from you. We generally record inbound and outbound telephone calls for operational purposes such as complaint handling and reporting, quality assurance, and staff training.
We may also collect your personal information from:
We collect your personal information for the purposes of our and relevant third parties’ services and relationship with you, such as:
If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may ‘opt out’ at any time by notifying us.
We may also collect personal information (including credit information and health information) on behalf of the insurers and lenders and other providers of Products that you choose to apply for. Product Providers will have their own Privacy Policy that applies to the information that we collect on their behalf. These may be different to that set out in this document. We recommend that you carefully read and familiarise yourself with such privacy terms of any third party with whom we are required to share your personal information.
We may disclose your personal information to the following people if we consider it necessary to do so for the purpose described in section ‘Why we collect your personal information’:
We may also disclose information about someone whose activities could cause harm to themselves or others (e.g. fraud). Where possible and appropriate, we will notify you of this type of disclosure.
We may use cloud storage to store the personal information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside New Zealand.
With the exception of cloud storage, we may not disclose your personal information to overseas third parties unless the jurisdiction of that third party provides similar safeguard to those in the Privacy Act.
When you visit our websites, we may record general information about your visit and usage for statistical purposes, such as your IP address and what features you used. Some of this information is collected using cookies.
Cookies are small text files that your browser stores when you visit websites. They enable us to provide Services to you, and help us understand how online visitors use our websites. Cookies do not identify you personally but do identify your computer.
While our cookies do not collect personal information, if you submit your name and email address as part of your usage, then we will link that personal information with the cookies information that we have previously collected from you.
Most web browsers are set to accept Cookies.
Our websites also use cookies to promote products and services from us and our partners on third party websites (including Google) to visitors of our websites. No personally identifiable data is collected for this advertising.
You can decide not to accept cookies through your browser settings however, this may affect your ability to use some of the products or services on our website.
We use systems such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, Crazy Frog or similar on our website to measure anonymised site activity for the purposes of improving our services. We use other tools in order to promote Staircase Financial Management Limited and our services and optimise user experiences. Including but not limited to Google's Remarketing feature, Facebook's Remarketing feature, Survey Monkey, or similar.
As our website is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet.
We understand the importance of protecting the personal information we hold about you. Personal information is held only for as long as necessary to achieve the purpose we collected if for and in all cases for such periods as we are required to in order to comply with any relevant legislation or regulations.
We take steps to ensure your personal information is free from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access or modification by:
While we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of personal information will not occur, we use our best efforts to prevent this.
In the event of an unauthorised privacy breach in relation to your Personal Information where it is reasonable to believe that such breach has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, we are required to report the breach to the relevant authority as soon as possible. In such circumstances, we will also notify you by e-mail or mail. We will give you notice as soon as possible, so that you and we may take appropriate action to protect your Personal Information.
Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. Our website may also display advertisements, which are hosted by third parties.
We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website or advertisement providers and we are not responsible for other privacy policies or the content of any third party website or advertisements. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.
Our online advertising network partner may use cookies, web beacons or other web tracking techniques to collect non-personally identifiable information about your activities on the website and other websites that you may visit to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests.
You are not required to provide any personal information to us but if you choose not to it might affect our ability to provide services to you and your ability to obtain insurance, lending and other products from Product Providers.
In most circumstances, it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you. However, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information, for example, if you make general inquiries about promotional offers.
You may choose to interact with our website anonymously, but we will not be able to contact you unless you provide your personal information.
The Privacy Act gives you the right to access and correct personal information held by us. Please contact Staircase Financial Management Limited if you:
Generally, we will send you electronic copies of any information we provide to you. We may charge you reasonable expenses for costs incurred in accessing your personal information (including searching and copying costs).
If you have any questions on our Privacy Policy or your personal information please contact us.
0800 89 467 89, enquiries@staircase.co.nz or write us a letter (address to: Compliance Manager – Staircase Financial Management Limited , PO Box 1790, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140).
This Privacy Policy was last updated April 2021.
