Our commitment
Your privacy is important to us at Merx (“Merx”) and we want to be sure that you understand the terms and conditions relating to the way in which we collect information and the use of that information.
Personal Information is defined in the Privacy Act 2020 and means information about an identifiable individual.
We will always collect, store, use and disclose your Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.
This Privacy Policy tells you what information we collect, what we do with it and your rights to view, correct or change it. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner provides further details of the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and how it protects Personal Information in New Zealand.
It is important that we keep our information about you current to ensure that we can contact you and to ensure we comply with legislation moving forward. To do this, we need you to advise us when you have any changes to your Personal Information.
We have policies and procedures in place to protect your Personal Information when you submit, or we collect, that information – including via our online services such as:
- information offered on, and provided by our website;
- social media pages including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn;
- email communications and subscription services; and
- Wi-Fi services, including communication via wireless networks.
Your Personal Information
In order to provide you with the appropriate products and services, we may collect, store, process, use and disclose the following information:
- Your name, date of birth, forms of identification, marital status, addresses, email address, telephone numbers, income, bank account details and taxation details, gender, information on your relationship with Merx and any other information provided by you in connection with, or specifically related to your communication with us or your use of our services;
- Accounting and financial information relating to your investment or loan with Merx
- Non-identifiable information relating to your use of the services such as browser type, IP (internet protocol) address and server log information (date and time of day of your visit and pages you accessed). We also collect information that you input into the website.
What we use your Personal Information for
You agree we can collect and use your Personal Information to:
- verify your identity
- set up and provide you with products & services
- manage and maintain your relationship with us
- provide you with information about products we believe you may be interested in, unless you tell us otherwise or opt out
- comply with any legislation in New Zealand or overseas applying to us or the products we provide you.
What happens if you don’t give us your Personal Information
If we ask for your Personal Information and you do not provide this, we may not be able to proceed with your application.
Who we collect and share your Personal Information with
You agree that we can collect and share your Personal Information with:
- Any company or organisation that we engage with to provide or manage your accounts, products and services
- Your authorised signatories and/or your agents
- Your parents or guardians if you’re under 18 years old
- Anyone who guarantees money you owe to us
- Anyone who provides services to or for us, including but not limited to, banks, law firms, custodians, debt collection agencies, credit reporting agencies or credit providers, identity verification providers, market research firms
- Banks or financial institutions, as part of our obligations when paying or receiving money on your behalf, or to investigate and prevent fraud
- Any other organisation as required by law.
When we disclose information about you to someone else for any of the reasons above, we require them to adhere to our standards of privacy, security and confidentiality.
On occasion, we collect information about you from public sources to use for any of the purposes set out in this Privacy Statement.
Credit reporting and debt recovery agencies
Credit reporting agencies collect good and bad information about your credit history. This helps people and companies provide you with the most appropriate goods and services. Debt recovery agencies enable people and companies to recover money owed to them where there a default has occurred, typically on a loan.
We are required to provide credit reporters with good and bad information about your credit history. We also obtain from time-to-time, and you authorise us to obtain, a credit report about you, to enable us to consider any relevant application you make, and to conduct our relationship with you.
You agree that we can provide credit reporters and debt recovery agencies information about you, and that they can provide it to others who pay for and use their services.
Compliance with laws in New Zealand or overseas
It is important that we are compliant with the laws of New Zealand, and in some situations overseas laws. This may mean we will need to provide certain people or organisations with information about you. You agree that we can provide information about you for the maintenance of the law including the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution and punishment of any offence, to any relevant person or institution, relevant law enforcement authority, the courts, or Government agency(s).
We’ll provide those parties with information about you to:
- comply with, prevent and maintain the laws of New Zealand or overseas.
- help prevent fraud, money laundering or financial crime.
We may not be allowed to tell you if we do give out information about you.
Storage and security
We are committed to protecting the security of your Personal Information and we take all reasonable precautions to protect it from unauthorised or accidental access, disclosure, alteration loss or destruction (together, a “Privacy Breach”).
If your Personal Information is subject to a Privacy Breach we will notify you if we reasonably believe that the breach has caused serious harm or is likely to do so.
Email newsletters and other notices
We are committed to full compliance with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.
It is our policy to send emails to Merx clients to keep them updated with information that we believe is relevant to them. In addition, we may send out promotional material to you regarding new or amended material on our site where we think it may be relevant to you.
It is our policy to immediately remove any person from any mailing list upon the person’s request. You can unsubscribe from our email communications and/or text communications at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link in any promotional or marketing email or text received or by emailing us at: fundgrowth@merx.co.nz
Once you have unsubscribed from the email or text communications, you will be removed from the corresponding marketing list as soon as is reasonably practicable.
Short Messaging Service – SMS / Text messages
By signing up to receive communications from Merx, you agree to receive marketing text messages from us to the mobile number provided. The message frequency may vary. Standard message rates apply when sending text messages to the short code service. Once unsubscribed you will be removed from the corresponding marketing list as soon as is reasonable practicable.
Cookies
A cookie is a small file that resides on your computer and is recognised by our server when you visit our site. A cookie does not provide us with any Personal Information. It does provide details of your IP address, the computer platform that you use (e.g. Mac or Windows), the browser that you use (e.g. Microsoft Explorer or Netscape) and what domain you are accessing our site from. With this information we can do the following:
- Track traffic patterns to our site.
- Ensure that the most relevant content is being shown.
If you would rather we did not use cookies with you, you can refuse them by turning them off in your browser and/or deleting them from your hard drive. You will still be able to visit our site.
Advertisers and business partners
This Privacy Policy only relates to our site. You should be aware that we are not responsible for the practices of our advertisers or business partners. Our site may contain links to other sites. You should check their privacy policies before providing Personal Information to them or any other third party.
Changes to this statement
In order to reflect the fact that our business is growing constantly, we reserve the right to change, amend or modify this Privacy Statement at any time. If there are material changes to our information use and collection practices, we will apply this to information collected on a going forward basis, and we will update this Privacy Statement
Your rights
The New Zealand Privacy Act of 2020 gives you the right to view or correct the information we hold for you. You can do this by:
- Visiting our office
- Calling us on 09 215 9364
- Contacting our Privacy Officer in writing and addressed to: The Privacy Officer, Merx, PO Box 1279, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 or email fundgrowth@merx.co.nz
We will only keep your Personal Information for as long as we require it for the purpose for which it was required. However, we may also be required to keep some of your Personal Information for specified periods of time, for example under certain laws relating to companies, money laundering and financial reporting legislation.
If you have a complaint
If you have a complaint or concerns about the privacy of your Personal Information, please let us know, by either contacting us at our office, calling us 09 263 2808 or our Privacy Officer (using the contact details above). We endeavour to resolve all disputes promptly and fairly. If you are not satisfied with the outcome you may refer your privacy related complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
This statement is current as at 28/11/2022.