This policy sets out how OwnHome Finance Pty Limited ACN 673 239 604 (Australian Credit Licence 555197), OwnHome Lending Pty Limited ACN 664 515 842 and our related businesses (we/us/our) collect, use and disclose the personal information (including credit-related information) we hold about you.
Our commitment to protect your privacy
We recognise that any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes we have collected it for or as allowed under the law. It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way which ensures protection of your personal information.
We are committed to protecting your personal information by abiding by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2025 (Credit Reporting Code) and any other relevant law. We take reasonable steps to inform and train our employees who handle your information about the requirements of these laws.
Personal information
When we refer to personal information, we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent, which may include information or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include credit-related information.
Credit-related information means:
- Credit information, which is information which includes your identity; the type, terms and maximum amount of credit provided to you, including when that credit was provided and when it was repaid; repayment history information, financial hardship information (including information that any repayments are affected by a financial hardship arrangement), default information (including overdue payments); payment information; new arrangement information; details of any serious credit infringements; court proceedings information; personal insolvency information and publicly available information; and
- Credit eligibility information,which is credit reporting information supplied to us by a credit reporting body (CRB), and any information that we derive from it.
We use your credit-related information to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance. Usually, credit-related information is exchanged between credit and finance providers and CRBs.
We use computer programs to apply our credit policy rules to information in your application, such as your income, expenses, liabilities and credit history, and to read and check documents you give us, such as payslips and bank statements. These programs substantially assist our decisions about whether to approve your application for credit.
The types of personal information we may collect about you include your name, date of birth, address, account details, occupation identity document numbers and any other information we may need to identify you.
When you use our website or mobile applications, we may collect information about your location or activity, including IP address, telephone number and whether you have accessed third party sites, the date and time of visits, the pages that are viewed, information about the device used, and other user location information. We collect some of this information using cookies (for more information, please see our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy).
If you are applying for finance or providing a guarantee, we may also collect the ages and number of your dependants and cohabitants, the length of time you have resided at your current address, your employment details, and proof of earnings and expenses.
Why we collect your personal information
We collect personal information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance, establishing your identity, contacting you, managing our risk, and to comply with our legal obligations. We may also collect your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing and managing our relationship with you. Improvements in technology also enable organisations like ours to collect and use information to get a more integrated view of our customers. We may offer you other products and services from time to time.
How we collect your personal information
Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may collect information about you that is publicly available, such as from public registers or social media, or made available by third parties. We may also collect your personal information from CRBs, mortgage and finance brokers, employers, and other people such as accountants and lawyers.
We will not ask you to supply personal information publicly over Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform that we use.
Disclosing your personal information to third parties
We may disclose your personal information:
- to prospective funders or other intermediaries (including credit licensees and mortgage managers) in relation to your finance requirements;
- to other organisations that are involved in managing or administering your finance, such as third party suppliers, printing and postal services, call centres, lenders, mortgage insurers, trade insurers and CRBs;
- to associated businesses that may want to market products to you;
- to companies that provide information and infrastructure systems to us;
- to our agents, contractors or external service providers to outsource certain functions, for example, statement production, debt recovery and information technology support;
- to any person who represents you, such as finance brokers, lawyers, mortgage brokers, guardians, persons holding power of attorney and accountants;
- to anyone where you have provided us consent;
- to other guarantors or borrowers (if more than one);
- to borrowers or prospective borrowers, including in relation to any credit you guarantee or propose to guarantee;
- to our auditors, insurers, re-insurers and health care providers;
- to claims related providers, such as assessors and investigators who help us with claims;
- where we are authorised to do so by law, such as under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth), or by government and law enforcement agencies or regulators;
- to investors, agents or advisers, trustees, rating agencies or any entity that has an interest in your finance or our business;
- to other financial institutions, for example to process a claim for mistaken payment;
- organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us; or
- to your employer, former employer, referees or identity verification services.
Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that:
- the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment; or
- you have consented to us making the disclosure.
Credit-related information
We exchange credit-related information for the purposes of assessing your application for finance and managing that finance. If you propose to be a guarantor, one of our checks may involve obtaining a credit report about you.
When we obtain credit eligibility information from a CRB about you, we may also seek publicly available information and information about any serious credit infringement that you may have committed.
We have practices, procedures and systems in place to ensure we only disclose credit-related information that is accurate, up-to-date and complete. If we identify that credit-related information we have disclosed to a CRB is not accurate, up-to-date and complete, we will advise the CRB as soon as practicable and take reasonable steps to amend the disclosure. If we become aware that credit reporting information disclosed to us by a CRB is not accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant having regard to the purpose of the disclosure, we will advise the body as soon as practicable.
Notifiable matters
The law requires us to advise you of ‘notifiable matters’ in relation to how we may use your credit-related information. You may request to have these notifiable matters (and this policy) provided to you in an alternative form.
We exchange your credit-related information with CRBs. We use the credit-related information that we exchange with CRBs to confirm your identity, assess your creditworthiness, assess your application for finance or your capacity to be a guarantor, and manage your finance.
If we seek information about you from a CRB in connection with an application for credit made by you or you providing a guarantee (known as a ‘credit enquiry’), your consent to the credit enquiry is not required. A record of the credit enquiry may be used and, as relevant, disclosed for the purposes of the CRB or a credit provider assessing your credit worthiness, including calculation of a credit score or credit rating (subject to any other use or disclosure limitations under the Privacy Act and associated regulations or the Credit Reporting Code). Credit enquiries on your credit report may impact your credit score or credit rating (for example, if multiple credit enquiries have been recorded over a short period, that may lower your credit score). The impact on your credit score or credit rating will depend on the type and amount of credit you apply for, the frequency of credit enquiries and your credit history.
The information we may exchange with CRBs includes your identification details, what type of loans you have, how much you have borrowed, whether or not you have met your loan payment obligations, whether you have entered into a financial hardship arrangement (either with us or some other third party), and if you have committed a serious credit infringement (such as fraud).
If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to any finance that we have provided or arranged, or if you have committed a serious credit infringement, we may disclose this information to a CRB. You have the right to request access to the credit-related information that we hold about you and make a request for us to correct that credit-related information if needed. See ‘Accessing and correcting your personal and credit-related information’ below for further information.
Sometimes your credit-related information will be used by CRBs for the purposes of ‘pre-screening’ credit offers on the request of other credit providers. You can contact the CRBs at any time to request that your credit-related information is not used in this way.
You may contact the CRBs to advise them that you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud. Credit reporting bodies must not use or disclose your credit-related information for a period of 21 days after you notify them that you may have been a victim of fraud. You can contact any of the following CRBs for more information:
- Equifax Pty Limited – www.equifax.com.au;
- Experian Australia Credit Services Pty Limited – www.experian.com.au; and
- Illion (Australia) Pty Limited – www.illion.com.au.
Financial hardship arrangements
If you are experiencing financial difficulty or are unable to meet your payment obligations, we may enter into a financial hardship arrangement with you.
If we enter into a financial hardship arrangement with you, we may disclose financial hardship information to CRBs. This information indicates that a financial hardship arrangement is in place and will be disclosed together with your repayment history information. CRBs are prohibited from using financial hardship information when calculating your credit score. We will provide you with information about the repayment history information and financial hardship information that may be disclosed as a result of the arrangement, at the time the arrangement is put in place, or as soon as practicable afterwards.
Comprehensive Credit Reporting
We participate in Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR). CCR has transformed the way lenders share credit-related information with CRBs in Australia.
CCR allows lenders to access not only the negative marks on your credit file but also the positive financial behaviours you've built up over time that have been reported to the CRB. This gives a fuller, fairer picture of your credit history.
Under CCR the way we exchange credit-related information with CRBs include:
- reporting repayment history information, including whether you have made your repayments on time. This means that over time, your credit report will provide a more accurate assessment of how you manage credit; and
- reporting financial hardship information – including the fact that you have entered into a financial hardship arrangement with us.
For more information on the types of information reported under CCR, visit CreditSmart’s Guide to CCR: https://www.creditsmart.org.au/
If you have any queries about our participation in CCR, and how this impacts you, please contact us. See ‘Further information’ below for our contact details.
Customer identification
To verify your identity, we may collect, use and disclose the information derived from your government issued documents (such as your Australian passport, state or territory driver licence, Medicare card, citizenship certificate or birth certificate) to the relevant government agency via the Document Verification Service (DVS), provided we have obtained your express consent to do so. Our use of the DVS may involve the use of third-party systems and services.
Our collection, use and disclosure of your information to the DVS to verify your identity is subject to compliance with our legal obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and our DVS Business User Participation Agreement. The DVS verifies supplied information by checking it against information held by the government agency that originally issued that document. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at support@ownhome.com or by phoning us on 02 7248 7528.
Verification of your identity is necessary for us to perform our functions and activities and provide products and services to you. If you do not provide evidence of your identity, or your express consent for us to verify your identity using the DVS, we may be unable to verify your identity, and you may not be able to receive products and services from us as a result.
If you wish to make a complaint relating to the collection, use and disclosure of your information for the purposes of verifying your identity with the DVS, you may contact us by emailing us at support@ownhome.com or calling us on 02 7248 7528.
You can find more information about the DVS, including information about the operation and management of the DVS Hub by the Attorney-General’s Department, at www.dvs.gov.au.
If you do not consent to us disclosing your information in this way, we will verify your identity in another way, which may involve requiring you to provide various supporting identification documents (either original or certified copies).
Overseas disclosure
We and the businesses we disclose your information to may disclose your information to businesses located overseas, such as in the USA, Canada, India, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Philippines or New Zealand.
Overseas entities may be required to disclose your information to relevant foreign authorities under a foreign law. We attempt to select and secure reputable offshore service providers. An overseas entity may not be subject to privacy laws or principles similar to those that apply in Australia. Any information disclosed to an overseas entity may not have the same protection as under the Australian privacy law.
You should understand that, by consenting to us disclosing your information to overseas entities we will not be required to take reasonable steps to ensure the overseas recipient complies with Australian privacy laws, and you may not be able to seek redress for any breach of your privacy which occurs outside of Australia.
The information we hold about you may be held by us in electronic form on our secure servers and may also be held in paper form. We may use cloud storage to store this information. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside Australia, in the UK and / or in the USA.
Direct marketing
We may use your personal information from time to time to provide you with current information about finance, offers you may find of interest, changes to our organisation, or new products or services being offered by us or any company with which we are associated.
You may at any time opt out of receiving marketing information by phoning us on 02 7248 7528 or by writing to us at support@ownhome.com. If we are sending you direct marketing by email, you may also use the unsubscribe function. We will not charge you for giving effect to your request and will take all reasonable steps to meet your request at the earliest possible opportunity.
Updating your personal information
It is important to us that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date. During the course of our relationship with you, we may ask you to inform us if any of your personal information has changed.
If you wish to make any changes to your personal information, you may contact us. We will generally rely on you to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate or complete.
You must notify us of any changes to your personal information that are required by any contracts you have with us.
Accessing and correcting your personal and credit-related information
We will provide you with access to the personal and credit-related information we hold about you. You may request access to any of the personal and credit-related information we hold about you at any time. We may charge a fee for our costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you.
Depending on the type of request that you make, we may respond to your request immediately. Otherwise, we will respond to you within 30 days of receiving your request. We may need to contact other entities to properly investigate your request.
There may be situations where we are not required to provide you with access to your personal or credit-related information, for example, if the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, if your request is vexatious, or if the information is commercially sensitive.
If we deny you access to the personal or credit-related information we hold about you, we will explain why.
If any of the personal or credit-related information we hold about you is incorrect, inaccurate or out-of-date, you may request that we correct the information by phoning us on 02 7248 7528 or by writing to us at support@ownhome.com.
If appropriate, we will correct the personal or credit-related information at the time of your request. Otherwise, after our investigation, we will tell you whether we have corrected your personal or credit-related information within 30 days of receiving your request.
We may need to consult with other finance providers or CRBs or entities as part of our investigation.
If we refuse to correct personal or credit-related information, we will provide you with our reasons for not correcting the information.
Business without identifying you
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 interest rates or current promotional offers).
Sensitive information
We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent. Sensitive information is personal information that includes information relating to your racial or ethnic origin, political persuasion, memberships in trade or professional associations or trade unions, sexual preferences, criminal record, or health.
Safety and security of your personal information
We will take a range of measures and reasonable steps to protect your personal information. Your personal information will always be stored in a secure environment. We may store your personal information in paper and electronic form. We will also take reasonable steps to protect any personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Complaints
If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act and the Credit Reporting Code, you may contact our complaints officer on 02 7248 7528 or at feedback@ownhome.com. When handling your complaint, we will comply with the applicable complaints handling requirements under Australian law, including any requirements under the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) scheme.
We will acknowledge your complaint within one business day and aim to resolve the complaint as quickly as possible. We will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 days. If we can't give you our response within 30 days, we will tell you in writing before the deadline why, when we expect to respond, and remind you of your right to complain to AFCA. We will also seek your agreement to an extension that is reasonable in the circumstances.
If you are not satisfied with the response of our complaints officer, you may make a complaint to the AFCA scheme, which can be contacted by phone on 1800 931 678, by email at info@afca.org.au, or in writing to GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001, or the Privacy Commissioner which can be contacted at either www.oaic.gov.au or by phone on 1300 363 992.
Further information
If you have any questions or concerns about how we handle your information, or would like to receive a copy of this policy in an alternative form, please contact us on 02 7248 7528, by email at support@ownhome.com, or by post at 52 Kellett Street, Potts Point NSW 2011.
Changes to our privacy and credit reporting policy
We may change this policy from time to time or as the need arises. We will post any changes to this policy on our website.
This policy was last updated on 9 October 2026.