Privacy policy

Privacy policy

Updated: 20 January, 2021

This Privacy Policy (policy) applies to information collected in Australia by amicaa Funds Management Pty Limited ABN 56 637 638 530, amicaa Advisors Pty Limited ABN 71 637 638 656 and their related bodies corporate (‘amicaa’ or ‘we’). It outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

At amicaa, we understand your concerns about privacy and the security of your personal information. Your privacy is important to us and we are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (‘APPs’). We are committed to protecting the personal information that we hold about you.

1. What personal information is collected?

amicaa collects personal information that is reasonably necessary for us to provide you with financial products and services and to administer them. The kind of personal information we collect and hold will depend upon the type of products and services that you request from us and may include:

  • information you give us when you request a product or service from us. This information may include your name, date of birth, address, contact details and relevant identification documents;
    communications between us and your financial, legal or other adviser, including your broker or other agent;
  • communications between us and associations that you are a member of and with which we have an affiliation;
  • transactional information about the use of a product if you have or had a product with us;
  • financial information about you such as your financial position and information obtained from credit checks if you have authorised us to carry out those checks;
  • in some cases sensitive information obtained with your consent or otherwise where required or permitted by law (e.g. in relation to anti-money laundering laws);
  • information such as your name, address and date of birth where an investor or borrower has listed you as a beneficial owner or other related party in connection with the investment or loan;
  • if you are a financial adviser or other authorised representative of a customer, your name, contact details and any other information you provide when communicating with us in relation to our products and services, or in connection with a mutual customer; and
  • information regarding your website interaction with us (i.e. the sections or features of our website that you have visited or used).

2. How is personal information collected?

amicaa collects personal information in a number of ways including:

  • directly from you (including via your financial, legal, or other adviser including your broker or other agent), such as when you provide the information by phone, email or in an application form, or when you access a user account for one of our login sites;
  • from other amicaa group companies where permitted by law;
  • from third parties such as your financial adviser, lawyer or other agents or credit reporting agencies, credit providers, or identity verification service providers, if you authorise us to do so;
  • from an investor or borrower where they have nominated you as a beneficial owner or other related person in connection with the investment or loan;
  • from publically or commercially available sources for the purpose of complying with customer due diligence obligations under relevant legislation (e.g. anti-money laundering laws).

3. What if you do not provide certain information?

If you provide us with an incomplete application, we may not be able to provide you with the product or service until the application is complete.

If you do not provide us with all relevant identity verification documents, or adequately satisfy electronic identity verification requirements, we may not be able to provide you, or continue to provide you with the product or service.

If you choose not to disclose your Tax File Number (‘TFN’), TFN exemption or Australian Business Number (‘ABN’), we may have to deduct tax at the highest marginal rate (plus the Medicare levy) from distributions or income payments made to you.

If you choose not to disclose your account details or correctly answer verification questions, we may not be able to process transactions requested.

4. How do we use and disclose your personal information?

amicaa may collect, use and disclose your personal information for the primary purpose of providing the products and/or services requested, as well as for related purposes such as:

  • to verify your identity or transactions which you may enter into with us (including the identities of third parties connected with your application for products and services, such as beneficial owners, where applicable);
  • to process your applications for our products and services;
  • to administer and manage the provision of our products and services;
  • to respond to queries, complaints or to provide you with our general client services;
  • to provide your nominated financial adviser or other agent with details of your investment;
  • to assess credit which you seek from amicaa loan programs and to administer any credit an amicaa loan program provides;
  • to provide you with offers of other amicaa products or services and to improve and personalise our products and services;
  • to comply with laws and regulatory requirements, including anti-money laundering, financial services and taxation laws, or complying with any request made by a governmental authority in connection with legal proceedings or the prevention or detection of fraud and crime;
  • to comply with amicaa’s risk management policies and procedures;
  • to conduct product and market research;
  • to train our staff; or
  • if attending our offices in person, to assist amicaa in providing a safe and secure environment for employees and visitors.

We may disclose your personal information to;

  • your financial, legal or other adviser, including your broker or other agent;
    professional service firms that provide services to us, such as, legal, audit or data/ information services;
  • our appointed unit registry or fund administration services providers;
  • electronic identity verification service providers, in order for identity information (about you or related persons connected with your investment/product) to be verified against relevant government and other databases, for the purpose of complying with anti-money laundering laws);
  • our related companies and/or the investment manager that may also provide you with a financial product or financial service; or
  • otherwise in accordance with this policy and the APPs.

5. Overseas disclosures

amicaa ordinarily does not disclose personal information collected in Australia to recipients in foreign countries. However, amicaa may disclose your personal information to LinkedIn who store personal information in the United States. This information is matched to information LinkedIn already holds about you. In turn, amicaa receives aggregated, de-identified data on its customer base.

In some cases, amicaa may utilise ‘Cloud’ storage solutions for data storage purposes, and the relevant servers may be located overseas. Please see ‘Storage and security of information’ section of this policy for further details.

6. Use of service providers

We may contract out some of our administrative and support functions such as mailing, settlement services, fund administration, unit registry services, document and data storage, background checking or identity verification to external service providers from time to time.

Only information necessary for the service provider to carry out their function will be provided and will be subject to confidentiality clauses in the relevant services agreement.

7. Keeping us up-to-date

Personal information such as contact details may change from time-to-time and we ask that you keep us informed of any changes by notifying us. Where you have previously provided information about another person related to your investment/product (such as a beneficial owner), and the information is no longer current, you must provide up-to-date information. Changes to some details, such as a change of name, may require additional documentation to verify the change. Additionally, some changes may be required to be made on a specific form (such as a change of bank account from which direct debits are deducted). amicaa is unable to change any account details or provide any policy specific information through email. To change your contact information please contact amicaa at [email protected].

Please see the ‘Contacting us’ section of this policy if you would like to request an update to the personal information we hold about you.

8. Storage and security of information

amicaa stores personal information in a combination of computer storage facilities, paper-based files and other records. These are held on our premises and systems as well as offsite using trusted third parties. Some personal information may be held by data service providers located overseas (such as ‘Cloud’ service providers for data storage and management purposes) and amicaa maintains effective control of the information under contractual arrangements.

We will take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, interference or misuse, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Where data is held by a third party administrator (such as our appointed unit registry services provider), we take reasonable steps to ensure that the provider has appropriate security measures in place to protect your information.

Where personal information is no longer required to be retained, we will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to de-identify the information or put it beyond use.

9. Openness

This policy sets out amicaa’s policies on the management of personal information and is made freely available on our website, or in hardcopy if requested.

10. Access and correction

Generally, amicaa will provide you with access to your personal information that we hold, unless a particular exception applies, such as where:

  • it would be unlawful to provide the information;
  • providing access would be likely to prejudice an investigation of possible unlawful activity;
  • the information is relevant to legal proceedings and would not be accessible in the normal discovery process;
  • giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals;
    it would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of any individual; or
  • the request is frivolous or vexatious.

If a request for access would divulge a commercially sensitive decision-making process, then amicaa may provide an explanation rather than direct access to the information.

If we become aware that the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, misleading or irrelevant, then we will take reasonable steps to amend it. If we receive a request from you to correct your information, then we will seek to correct it within 30 days. If you and amicaa disagree about the accuracy, completeness or currency of our records, then you have the right to request that we note your disagreement on those records.

Please see the ‘Contacting us’ information below if you would like to request an update or seek access to the personal information we hold about you.

11. Identifiers

amicaa does not use any government-issued identifiers (such as TFNs, Medicare numbers and Drivers Licence numbers) for use as its own identifier for individuals. Instead, amicaa issues numbers such as investor numbers and account numbers are used to identify individuals and the amicaa products and services they obtain.

12. Anonymity and pseudonymity

Given legal requirements on financial institutions to identify their customers, in most situations amicaa is unable to allow you to transact with it on the basis of anonymity (including the use of a pseudonym). Access to the amicaa website, and some other interactions with amicaa may be done anonymously, or in the case of general enquiries, using a pseudonym. However, we may not be able to respond to your queries unless you provide us with certain information.

13. Direct marketing

amicaa will not use your personal information for direct marketing purposes unless:

  • we have obtained your consent or you would reasonably expect us to use your personal information for direct marketing purposes; and
  • we have provided you with a simple means to ‘opt-out’ from receiving direct marketing; and
  • we have not received such a request from you.

amicaa will not use any sensitive information collected from you for direct marketing purposes. To opt-out of receiving direct marketing, please contact us (see ‘Contacting us’ section below).

14. Use of our website

We will collect some information from you when you visit the amicaa website. Some of this information will not be personal information because it will not reveal your identity.

The only personal information which we collect about you when you use the website is what you tell us about yourself; for example, by completing an online form such as to ask for a disclosure document for our products or by sending us an email.

Website analytics

amicaa may use third party web analytics providers to collect information on how people use our website and to help us know what our customers find interesting and useful in our website. Our web analytics providers use “cookies” and in some cases “clear gifs/web beacons” to collect information. For more information on our web analytics providers, please visit Omniture and Google Analytics sites.

Online advertising

amicaa may use several advertising companies for online advertising. These advertising companies may use cookies to collect information such as browser type, date and time of your visit, your interactions with banner advertisements and if you have visited our website through an online advertisement. None of the information collected by the advertising companies will personally identify you.

Cookies

Cookies are pieces of information that are transferred to your computer when you visit a website so that sites can record usage and, in some cases, provide you with tailored content or targeted advertising. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. You can choose to disallow cookies by changing settings on your web browser. However, if you reject all cookies you may not be able to use some areas of our websites.

15. Electronic Verification

We are required by the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to verify your identity before we can provide you with financial products and services. We may need to verify your identity electronically if the copies of the identity documents you provide have not been certified or if we need to perform any additional checks to meet our legal requirements.

How electronic verification works

To verify your identity electronically, we will pass certain information to official State and Commonwealth record holders via our service provider to electronically match your information with information on their databases. These organisations will compare the information to their records and confirm whether all or some of the information you provided matches their records.

What information will be shared and who will it be shared with

If we need to verify your identity electronically, we will provide the following information to our service provider:

  • Full name
  • Date of birth
  • Residential address
  • Government identifiers such as your passport or driver’s licence number.

We may engage external service providers to check the relevant identity document details you have provided against the records held by the government authority that issued it (either via the government’s Document Verification Service or directly with the relevant issuer) and to check the document is valid and has not expired.

If you have any questions around our electronic verification process, please call us on 1300 896 514.

16. Employment opportunities at amicaa

If you are seeking employment or contracting opportunities with us, we will collect personal information from you and, where applicable, from any referees you have provided to us during the recruitment process. Personal information gathered during the recruitment process will only be used to assess your suitability for the relevant role, and if you are not the preferred candidate, your information may be retained to assess your suitability for roles offered in the future.

We may also collect sensitive information about you as part of our background checking process (with your consent). This information may be disclosed to (and obtained from) third party agencies that we engage to conduct screening checks on our behalf, including overseas agencies where you have prior residential or working history in those locations. For some roles, we may request that candidates complete psychometric testing to assist in candidate selection. This may involve you taking an ability assessment or providing information about your work style and preferences. Testing would typically be undertaken via a service provider’s online system, with results provided to amicaa.

If you complete psychometric testing but are not subsequently employed by us, you may contact us at any time to request that your results are de-identified by amicaa and/or our third party provider, and we will take reasonable steps to comply with such requests.

17. Contacting us

If you would like more information about how we manage your personal information, please contact our Chief Operating Officer on 1300 896 514 or write to us at the following address:

The Chief Operating Officer
amicaa
Level 13, 234 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000

Or send an email to: [email protected]

18. Complaints about your privacy

If you wish to raise any concerns about any breach or potential breach of your privacy, please contact our Compliance Officer and we will make every effort to resolve your complaint internally. If you wish to raise a concern, you should be aware of the following;

  • Your complaint should be made in writing to the Compliance Officer (via post or email);
  • We will attempt to respond within 30 days from receipt of your request;
  • If you feel your concerns have not been resolved, you may take them to an external dispute resolution service, such as the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to consumers. There are some time limits for lodging certain complaints, please consult the AFCA website to find out if or when the time limit relevant to your circumstances expires.
  • The complaint may also be taken to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

For more information on how you may lodge a complaint with the OAIC, please contact the OAIC hotline service on 1300 363 992 or email [email protected]

Changes to our Privacy Policy

amicaa may make changes to this policy from time to time for any reason and we will update the website in a timely manner.