Home Loan Experts Pty Ltd ABN 80 648 606 464, referred to in this policy as Home Loan Experts, we, us or our, is committed to protecting your privacy.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information, credit-related information and sensitive information. It also explains how you can access or correct your information, make a privacy complaint, and opt out of direct marketing.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles, applicable credit reporting laws and other legal obligations that apply to our mortgage broking services.
In short: We collect information to understand your home loan needs, assess your options, prepare applications, support customers, improve our services, meet legal obligations and protect our systems. We may use trusted service providers, offshore support teams and AI-assisted tools, but brokers remain responsible for credit assistance and recommendations.
What Information We Collect
We collect information that helps us understand your home loan needs, assess your financial position, assist with your enquiry or application, and provide ongoing customer support.
The information we collect may include:
- your name, date of birth and contact details;
- identity verification documents;
- employment, income, expense and asset details;
- loan purpose, property details, deposit amount and borrowing requirements;
- residency, visa or citizenship information;
- bank statements, payslips, tax documents and other supporting documents;
- information about your interactions with us, including calls, emails, chats and form submissions;
- website usage, cookie, device, browser, IP address, referral source, UTM and advertising data;
- feedback, survey responses, reviews or testimonials you choose to provide.
If you do not provide information we reasonably need, we may not be able to assess your situation, assist with your enquiry, recommend loan options or help prepare a loan application.
Credit-related information
Because we provide mortgage broking and credit assistance services, we may collect and handle credit-related information.
This may include:
- information about credit accounts you hold or have held;
- repayment history;
- credit limits;
- defaults, serious credit infringements, court judgments or insolvency information;
- credit reports, credit scores or credit assessments provided by credit reporting bodies;
- our own internal assessments of your creditworthiness or suitability for a home loan.
We use credit-related information to help assess your loan options, prepare applications, perform credit checks where authorised, and meet our legal and regulatory obligations.
Sensitive information
Sensitive information may include health information, racial or ethnic origin, criminal records, political or professional affiliations, or information about personal vulnerability.
We only collect sensitive information where it is reasonably necessary for our services and where we have your consent, unless an exception applies by law.
For example, we may need to collect information about a medical condition or hardship situation if it is relevant to supporting a lender application or hardship request.
How We Collect Information
We collect information in three main ways.
Directly from you
We collect information when you:
- submit an enquiry or application;
- complete a form, calculator or online assessment;
- provide supporting documents;
- speak with us by phone, email, SMS, live chat or mail;
- provide feedback, reviews, testimonials or survey responses.
Through our website and digital tools
When you use our website, calculators, 360° Home Loan Assessor, chat tools, automated assistants or online forms, we may collect information about your activity.
This may include information you enter into a form or tool, even if you do not complete or submit the final enquiry.
For example, if you partly complete an online form, calculator, chat interaction or assessment tool, our systems may capture and retain partial information such as:
- contact details;
- loan purpose;
- property details;
- deposit amount;
- preliminary financial information;
- chat transcripts;
- form interaction data;
- page URLs;
- referral sources;
- campaign or UTM data;
- browser, device and IP address information.
We use this information to help respond to enquiries, improve our website and tools, detect spam or fraud, and provide relevant follow-up where permitted by law.
From third parties
Where it is reasonable, necessary or authorised, we may collect information from third parties, including:
- your accountant, solicitor, conveyancer, real estate agent or other representative;
- your employer, for employment verification;
- identity verification providers;
- lenders, banks and non-bank lenders;
- mortgage insurers, valuers and aggregators;
- credit reporting bodies, such as Equifax;
- government bodies or public records where permitted by law.
Why We Collect, Use And Disclose Information
We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to:
- respond to your enquiry;
- understand your home loan needs, goals and financial position;
- assess your borrowing capacity and loan options;
- provide credit assistance and mortgage broking services;
- prepare, process and manage loan applications;
- verify your identity;
- perform credit checks where authorised;
- communicate with lenders, credit providers and service providers;
- provide customer service, complaints handling and ongoing support;
- monitor and improve our website, calculators, chat tools, automated assistants and customer experience;
- personalise content and improve our services;
- detect, prevent and investigate fraud, spam, suspicious enquiries, cybersecurity risks or misuse of our systems;
- train staff and improve service quality;
- comply with legal, regulatory, contractual, audit and record-keeping obligations;
- send marketing, reminders, offers or information where permitted by law.
Direct Marketing
We may use your personal information to send you information about home loans, refinancing, lender policy updates, customer care reminders, offers, services or resources that may be relevant to you.
We may also use cookies, pixels, remarketing, retargeting and advertising tools to show relevant advertising online.
You can opt out of direct marketing at any time. Opting out is free.
You can opt out by using the unsubscribe option in our communications, contacting us directly, or adjusting your browser, cookie or advertising settings where available.
Cookies, Pixels And Website Tracking
Cookies are small files stored on your device. Pixels and similar technologies help us understand website activity and advertising performance.
We use cookies and similar technologies to:
- operate our website;
- remember preferences;
- improve user experience;
- understand which pages and tools are useful;
- measure advertising performance;
- support remarketing and retargeting;
- help detect suspicious activity.
- Some cookies do not directly identify you.
However, cookie data, device data, browser data, IP address, advertising identifiers or website usage data may be treated as personal information where it identifies you or can reasonably be linked to you.
You can set your browser to refuse cookies or delete cookies from your device. Some website features or tools may not work properly if cookies are disabled.
AI, Automation And Digital Tools
We use artificial intelligence (AI), automation and other digital tools to help our team work efficiently, improve service quality and support customers.
Broker-assist tools
We may use AI-assisted tools to:
- summarise calls or conversations;
- transcribe or review documents;
- identify missing information;
- draft internal notes;
- support broker analysis;
- help our team process information more efficiently.
These tools support our staff. They do not replace our brokers.
A qualified broker remains responsible for credit assistance, recommendations, Best Interests Duty assessments and loan applications submitted on your behalf.
AI does not make final lending decisions, approve your loan, select your lender on its own, or provide personal credit advice without human review.
Morty, our automated chat assistant
Morty is our automated chat assistant powered by ChatGPT. It helps answer general questions when our human operators are offline.
Morty uses publicly available content from our website. It cannot access your loan application, internal customer profile or non-public personal information to answer your questions.
Morty provides general information only. It does not provide financial, legal or tax advice, and it does not make credit recommendations or decisions about your eligibility.
Our staff may review or monitor chat interactions to improve accuracy, quality and customer experience.
Calculators and 360° Home Loan Assessor
Our calculators and 360° Home Loan Assessor may display automated or AI-generated tips based on the information you enter.
These tips are general guidance only. They are not personal financial, legal, tax, or credit advice.
The information you enter may be used to provide tool results, handle your enquiry, improve our services and support follow-up where permitted by law.
Document extraction and internal processing
When you provide documents such as bank statements, payslips or identification, we may use software tools, including optical character recognition and automated data extraction, to help read, classify and process your documents.
These tools may help us extract data, review expenses, benchmark living costs, verify identity and support application preparation. They assist our team but do not replace human review.
Spam, fraud and suspicious enquiry screening
We use technical tools, business rules and AI-enabled systems to help identify spam, duplicate, fraudulent, abusive, incomplete or suspicious enquiries.
Where an enquiry is flagged, it may be reviewed, deprioritised, blocked or handled differently depending on the circumstances.
We take reasonable steps to avoid misclassifying genuine enquiries. If you believe your enquiry has been handled incorrectly, you can contact us and request a manual review.
AI model training
We do not use your personal information, financial records or chat transcripts to train AI models.
Where third-party AI providers process information for us, we use commercial terms, security controls and settings designed to prevent our data from being used to train their public models.
Some AI processing may occur on secure third-party platforms, including platforms with servers outside Australia.
Who We May Disclose Information To
We may disclose personal information where:
- you have consented;
- it is reasonably necessary to provide our services;
- it is needed to assess, process or manage your enquiry or loan application;
- it is needed to perform credit checks or verify information;
- it supports customer service, compliance, audit, security or risk management;
- it is required or permitted by law;
- it is for a purpose you would reasonably expect.
We may disclose information to:
- lenders, banks, non-bank lenders and credit providers;
- mortgage insurers, valuers, aggregators and deposit bond providers;
- credit reporting bodies, such as Equifax;
- identity verification providers;
- your solicitor, conveyancer, accountant, real estate agent or other authorised representative;
- your partner, guarantor or person acting on your behalf;
- technology, CRM, cloud hosting and data storage providers;
- communication, call, email, SMS and customer support platforms;
- analytics, advertising, remarketing and marketing platforms;
- AI-enabled service providers and automation vendors;
- cybersecurity, fraud prevention and spam detection providers;
- professional advisers, auditors, lawyers, debt collectors and accountants;
- government agencies, regulators, courts or tribunals where required or permitted by law;
- offshore support teams and related Home Loan Experts entities.
We may also disclose information to another organisation that acquires, or proposes to acquire, an interest in our business or your loan, where permitted by law.
Before disclosing personal information to another organisation, we take reasonable steps to ensure the disclosure is appropriate and that the organisation is required to handle the information securely.
Overseas Disclosures
We may disclose, store, access or process personal information outside Australia.
Alaya Nepal
Home Loan Experts uses an integrated service delivery model that includes support from Alaya, formerly HLE Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Alaya may access, store or process personal, financial and credit application information to support our Australian operations.
This may include:
- loan packaging;
- document verification;
- file auditing;
- application administration;
- broker and customer support tasks.
Cloud, software and AI providers
We also use third-party software, cloud infrastructure, communication platforms, productivity tools and AI-assisted services.
These providers may process or store information on servers outside Australia. The main overseas locations currently expected to be relevant are Nepal and the United States. Other countries may also apply depending on the provider’s infrastructure and service arrangements.
Where we use overseas service providers, we take reasonable steps to protect personal information, including through commercial terms, security controls and access restrictions.
How We Protect Information
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, unauthorised modification and unauthorised disclosure.
These steps include technical, organisational and physical safeguards.
Technical safeguards may include:
- secure systems;
- encryption where appropriate;
- access controls;
- secure authentication;
- monitoring and logging;
- secure cloud platforms;
- security controls for third-party providers.
Organisational safeguards may include:
- privacy and security policies;
- staff training;
- access limited to authorised personnel;
- processes for handling privacy incidents and suspected data breaches;
- controls for offshore and third-party service providers;
- regular review of privacy and security practices.
No method of transmission or storage is completely risk-free. However, we use reasonable safeguards to protect personal information throughout its lifecycle.
Payment Security
Where online card payments are available, payments may be processed through a third-party payment gateway such as eWAY.
We do not permanently store complete credit card details.
Payment providers may use encryption and other security measures to process transactions securely.
How Long We Keep Information
We keep personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, for related business purposes, or as required or permitted by law.
This may include retaining information for:
- credit assistance and mortgage broking record-keeping obligations;
- audit, compliance and regulatory requirements;
- dispute resolution and complaints handling;
- fraud, spam and cybersecurity prevention;
- customer service and ongoing support;
- marketing or customer care where permitted by law.
For customer credit assistance records, we may be required to retain certain information for at least seven years.
If you visit our website but do not submit a loan enquiry, website usage data may be kept for up to 180 days, unless we are required or permitted to retain it for longer for security, compliance, legal, analytics or business purposes.
When personal information is no longer needed and we are not required or permitted to keep it, we take reasonable steps to destroy it securely or permanently de-identify it.
Accessing Or Correcting Your Information
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you.
You may also ask us to correct information if you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading.
To request access or correction, contact us using the details at the end of this policy. Please include “Privacy” in the subject line so we can direct your request to the right team.
We may need to verify your identity before responding. In some cases, we may be unable to provide access or make a correction, but we will explain why where required.
Complaints
If you have a privacy complaint, please contact us first so we can review and respond.
You can write to:
The Home Loan Experts
Suite 207, 3 Rider Boulevard
Rhodes NSW 2138
Or email:
Please include “Privacy Complaint” in the subject line.
We will handle your complaint fairly and professionally. We will aim to respond within 30 days. If we need more time, we will let you know.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
General Information, Website Content And Social Media
Our website, calculators, chat tools, articles, social media content, advertisements and downloadable resources may include general information about home loans, lenders, borrowing options and related topics.
Unless we clearly state otherwise, this information is general information only. It does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs.
You should not rely on general information as personal financial advice, legal advice, tax advice or credit recommendations.
Lender policies, interest rates, eligibility comments, borrowing examples and loan options may change. You should confirm information with a qualified Home Loan Experts broker or the relevant lender before acting on it.
If you interact with us on social media, review platforms or public websites, the information you provide may be visible to other users depending on your privacy settings and the platform’s terms.
Please do not share sensitive personal or financial information publicly through social media comments or public review platforms.
Additional Rights For EU Individuals
We may provide services to borrowers who live or work in the European Union, including Australian expats.
Where the General Data Protection Regulation applies, you may have additional rights, including:
- the right to access your personal data;
- the right to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data;
- the right to request deletion of your data;
- the right to restrict processing;
- the right to object to certain processing, including direct marketing;
- the right to data portability;
- the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated decision-making where the decision has legal or similarly significant effects.
These rights may be subject to limits. For example, we may need to retain certain records to comply with Australian credit laws, regulatory obligations or legal requirements.
Contact Us
You can request more information about how we manage personal information by contacting us at:
The Home Loan Experts
Suite 207, 3 Rider Boulevard
Rhodes NSW 2138
or email info@homeloanexperts.com.au
Please include “Privacy” in the subject line for privacy-related requests.
This website is operated by Home Loan Experts Pty Ltd ABN 80 648 606 464.