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Dated: June 2025
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy sets out the policy of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, ‘We’, ‘us' and ‘our' refers to Industrial and Commercial Bank Sydney Branch ARBN 57 086 866 506, AFS Licence 324233 and our related businesses).
This policy addresses the collection, use, disclosure and protection of personal information by ICBC and/or our related bodies corporate (including those in other jurisdictions), as well as how you can access and change your information, ask a question or make a compliant.
2. Our commitment to protect your privacy
We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our privacy policy commitment in respect of personal information we hold about you and what we do with that information.
The personal information we collect and deal with often relates to individuals in their capacity as officers or other representatives of a corporate client entity. We also deal with individuals in their capacity as shareholders and/or guarantors of corporate clients, and/or as holders of units in certain funds, and in these cases we also collect and deal with credit-related information. We may also collect and deal with personal information as part of our product and service offerings, including e-banking and payments associated with deposit accounts.
We recognize 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.
Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles for the protection of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act.
3. Personal information
We collect personal information that is necessary for us to perform our functions and activities, in a manner which complies with the applicable laws and regulations. Unless it is unreasonable or impractical, we will collect personal information directly from you.
When we refer to personal information we mean information from which you may be identified or from which you are reasonably identifiable. This information may include information or an opinion about you. The personal information we hold about you may also include credit-related information which is described further in section 7.
The kinds of personal information we may collect, use, disclose and retain includes:
1. information about your identity – including full name, date of birth, address, contact details, gender and marital status;
2. financial and transaction information, including bank account or PayID details;
3. employment details, including salary and wage details;
4. tax residency details and tax file numbers;
5. identity verification details and documents, including copies of your passport and driver licence;
6. complaint and enquiry details;
7. credit-related information (see section 7 below);
8. internet protocol (“IP”) address and information about your device and settings; and
9. other personal information collected through your communications and interactions with us
If we are not provided with this personal information, we may not be able to fully provide our service to you or your connected entities.
4. Why we collect your personal information
We may collect your personal information:
1. when you enquire about or use our products or services;
2. to provide our products and services to you or to an entity which you represent, including the administration and management of those products and services;
3. to promote our products and services to you or to an entity which you represent;
4. for the purposes of assessing your application for any of our products or services, including finance or a loan, and managing that finance and/or loan;
5. to comply with record keeping and reporting requirements;
6. to comply with laws, including to verify your identity and complete anti-money laundering and counter terrorism checks;
7. detect, prevent, investigate and prosecute crimes and illegal conduct;
8. when you contact us to make an enquiry or give us feedback;
9. when you visit our website; and
10. when you do business with us.
5. How do we collect your personal information?
Where reasonable and practical, we will collect your personal information directly from you. We may also collect your personal information from credit reporting bodies (see section 7 below) and from finance brokers and other people such as accountants and lawyers.
6. How we usually use and disclose your personal information
Any personal information which we collect about you may be used and disclosed by us for the purpose for which it was collected by us, or any related purposes for which you may reasonably expect us to use and disclose it. For instance, we may from time to time use your personal information to inform you of products and services which may be of interest to you or your connected entities.
We may disclose your personal information to:
1. other members of the ICBC Group, for purposes including to ensure their compliance with laws to enable us to tailor our products and services to meet your needs;
2. other organizations that are outside of the ICBC Group who have agreements to provide products and services to us and with whom we have a relationship;
3. other organizations such as financial institutions or payment processors for merchants or payment initiators, in connection with our products and services, where you have instructed us to make payments from your account;
4. our agents, credit managers and related service providers who assist us in the management and administration of our services;
5. our other agents and service providers who provide various services, in connection with our products and services;
6. anybody who represents you, such as finance brokers, lawyers, and accountants;
7. those persons or entities to whom you have provided us consent to disclose your personal information;
8. regulatory bodies, government agencies, law enforcement bodies, courts and relevant dispute resolution schemes;
9. participants in the payments system and other financial institutions for the purpose of providing you with our products and services, resolving disputes or errors or other matters arising out of your use of ICBC products; and
10. investors, agents or advisers, or any entity that has an interest in your finance or our business.
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 Australia, including in the People’s Republic of China.
7. Credit-related information
This section contains additional information about how we deal with personal information we collect about you when you apply or use our credit related products or services, (“credit-related information”).
We may collect, hold, use and disclose certain credit-related information about you in connection with our services, including:
1. identification details, including full name, phone numbers, postal address and previous addresses, date of birth, employment details;
2. details of the relevant credit related product or service for which you are applying or using;
3. details of previous information requests to credit reporting bodies made by third parties;
4. details of your other credit providers and the terms of those credit arrangements;
5. payment default information, including information about related payment arrangements and subsequent repayments;
6. details about finance that you have outstanding, any payment defaults you have made, and any other repayment history information;
7. details of any financial hardship arrangements you have entered into and your compliance with them;
8. information about serious credit infringements, including actual or suspected fraud;
9. information about adverse court judgements relating to your credit;
10. publicly available information about you and your creditworthiness, such as court judgments, directorship and business proprietorship details, bankruptcy, debt agreement and personal insolvency;
11. certain insolvency information, including from the National Personal Insolvency Index;
12. credit eligibility information, such as any credit score or credit risk assessment received from a credit reporting body, including their analysis of your eligibility for credit; and
13. information we have derived from the information provided by credit reporting bodies for purposes related to establishing your eligibility for credit, including our own internal financial summaries of this information and the credit scores and ratings we assign to you.
The information may be collected in a number of ways, such as obtaining it directly from you in your application for credit, or from a person acting on your behalf, such as a solicitor, accountant, broker or conveyancer. We may also collect your credit-related information from credit reporting bodies, other credit providers, any co-applicants or guarantors of your credit application, any referees you list on your credit application, valuers and other companies involved in assessing your security, companies involved in the securitization of loans, insurers, ID verification services, and our service providers.
We will use this information:
1. to assess your creditworthiness and to assess any application by you, or an entity related to you, for credit (including assessing any proposed guarantors);
2. to manage credit we may provide (including servicing and administration of our products);
3. for our loan securitisation process;
4. to participate in credit reporting systems and providing information to credit reporting bodies as permitted by Part IIIA of the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2024;
5. for internal management purposes;
6. to assist you if we consider that you may be at risk of defaulting on your credit related obligations;
7. to assess hardship requests;
8. to undertake debt recovery and enforcement activities, including in relation to guarantors;
9. to meet legal and regulatory requirements (such as reporting matters to regulators or enforcement bodies);
10. to deal with complaints and legal proceedings;
11. to derive scores, ratings and other information relating to your credit worthiness which are used in our decision-making process; and
12. to assist other credit providers to do the same (e.g., mortgage/titles insurers).
This credit-related information 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 the credit-related information we hold about you.
The credit-related information we hold about you may be disclosed and exchanged with credit reporting bodies. Credit reporting bodies may disclose this information to other organisations to assist them in assessing your eligibility for credit. We may also share your credit-related information with our head office in China, and disclose it to other overseas entities that provide support functions to us. These entities are located in the People's Republic of China. You may obtain more information about these entities by contacting us. Where necessary, we may also disclose your credit-related information to referees you provide to us, any co-applicants or guarantors for your credit or credit application, our service providers, any of your representatives (such as a solicitor, accountant, broker or conveyancer). For example, we may disclose your credit-related information to our lawyers who will assist with the security lodgment and release process.
8. Direct marketing
From time to time, we may use your personal information to provide you with current information about finance, offers you may find of interest, changes to our organization, or new products or services being offered by us or any company with whom we are associated.
If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may at any time decline to receive such information by telephoning us on (02) 9475 5588 or by writing to us at info@icbc.com.au or Level 42, Tower 1, International Tower, 100 Barangaroo Avenue, Sydney 2000. If the direct marketing is by text or 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.
9. 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 the information we hold about you is accurate or complete.
10. Access and correction to your personal and credit-related information
On request by you, 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 information we hold about you during business hours. There is no fee to ask for your information but we might charge a fee to cover the cost we spend finding and putting together the information you want.
Depending on the type of request that you make we may respond to your request immediately, otherwise we usually respond to you within seven 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, or if your request is vexatious.
An explanation will be provided to you, if we deny you access to the personal or credit-related information we hold about you.
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. If appropriate we will correct the personal information at the time of the request, otherwise, we will provide an initial response to you within seven days of receiving your request. Where reasonable, and after our investigation, we will provide you with details about whether we have corrected the personal or credit-related information within 30 days.
We may need to consult with other finance providers or credit reporting bodies 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.
11. Using government identifiers
If we collect government identifiers, such as your tax file number, we do not use or disclose this information other than as authorized or required by law. We will never adopt a government identifier as our own identifier of you, unless required or authorized by law or a court or tribunal.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. How safe and secure is your personal information that we hold?
We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal information by storing it in a secure environment. We may store your personal information in paper and/or electronic form. We will also take reasonable steps to protect any personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.
15. Complaints
If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, or you have a complaint about our compliance with the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2024, you may contact our complaints officer on 02 9475 5588 or via info@icbc.com.au.
We will acknowledge your complaint and will provide you with a decision on your complaint within 30 calendar days.
If you are dissatisfied with the response of our complaints officer, you may make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner on either 1300 363 992 or at www.oaic.gov.au.
Alternatively you may contact our External Dispute Resolution Scheme, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (“AFCA”) which can be contacted on 1800 367 287, or you may go to the AFCA website for further contact details and how to lodge a complaint: https://www.afca.org.au/about-afca/.
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