Avenue privacy

Avenue Capital Management Ltd recognises that your privacy is very important to you. We are committed to protecting and maintaining the privacy, accuracy and security of your personal and financial information. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you what kind of information we may gather about you, how we may use that information, whether we disclose it to anyone and the choices you have regarding our use of and your ability to correct this information.

We are bound by the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) which forms part of the AML/CTF Act. The NPPs govern how organisations must handle personal information. We have developed our Privacy Policy to address any concerns that you may have about how personal information you provide to Avenue is collected, held, used, corrected, disclosed and transferred.

  

Collection of Personal Information

1. As a financial planning organisation we are subject to certain legislative and regulatory requirements which necessitate us obtaining and holding detailed information which personally identifies you and/or contains information or an opinion about you ("Personal Information"). Our ability to provide you with a comprehensive financial planning and advice service is dependent on us obtaining certain Personal Information about you, including, but not limited to:
   a. information about your employment history, employment circumstances, family commitments and social security eligibility;
   b. details of your financial needs and objectives;
   c. details of your current financial circumstances, including your assets and liabilities (both actual and potential), income, expenditure, insurance cover and superannuation;
   d. details of your investment preferences and aversion to or tolerance of risk;
   e. We may also need health information from you to provide you with insurance advice, but not necessarily for investment products.
2. We are required, pursuant to the Corporations Act, certain regulations issued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Financial Planning Association, of which this organisation is a member, to collect information about you for the purpose of providing you with the services referred to above.
   
   
3. You may choose not to provide us with your personal information. If this is the case, depending on the nature and quality of the information you choose to withhold, we may not be able to provide you with advice or implement strategies entirely appropriate to your financial needs and objectives.
   
   
4. We also collect information about you for the purpose of reporting to AUSTRAC under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006.
   
   
5. We will not collect any Personal Information about you except when you have knowingly provided that information to us or authorised a third party to provide that information to us.
   
6. Generally, collection of your Personal Information will be effected in either face to face interviews, over the telephone or by way of an online client Data Collection Booklet. We may need to collect personal and financial information from third parties such as your accountant and we will discuss this with you.
   
   
7. You have the option of not identifying yourself in certain dealings with Avenue Capital Management. However, in situations where we require your personal information wherever it is lawful or practicable you may be obliged to provide your details to us.
   
   
8. From time to time, we may ask you to authorise us to contact external parties to obtain information about you or your financial matters. You have the option of not authorising Avenue in obtaining this information. Please note that incomplete information may not be in your best interests when you are provided with advice.

  

Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

9. We collect, maintain and use Personal Information about you to provide you with adequate financial planning advice, products and services, including:
   
   a. the preparation of your financial plan;
   b. the provision of financial planning advice to you;
   c. the provision of risk insurance advice and cover;
   d. making securities and investment recommendations;
   e. reviewing your financial plan;
   f. reviewing securities and investment recommendations; and
   g. the provision of equity or lending services.
   
10. We will not use or disclose Personal Information collected by us for any purpose other than:
    
    a. the purposes for which it was provided or secondary related purposes in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure; or
    b. where you have consented to such disclosure; or
    c. where the National Privacy Principles authorise use or disclosure as required or by law or otherwise permitted under the AML/CTF Act, in circumstances relating to public health and safety and in connection with certain operations by or on behalf of an enforcement body.
    
11. We are required under the Rules of Professional Conduct of the Financial Planning Association of Australia to make certain information available for inspection by the Association on request to ensure ongoing compliance with mandatory professional standards. This may involve the disclosure of your Personal Information. We are also obliged pursuant to the Corporations Act to maintain certain transaction records and make those records available for inspection by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
    
    
12. We may disclose your Personal Information to another Avenue Capital Management financial planner during periods when your branch office is unmanned or closed so that you can be assured of receiving a continued service.
    
    
13. We may disclose your Personal Information to superannuation fund trustees, insurance providers, and product issuers for the purpose of giving effect to your financial plan and the recommendations made by us.
    
    
14. We may disclose your Personal Information to external parties who provide services to us, in which case we will seek to ensure that the personal information is held, used or disclosed consistently with the National Privacy Principles. Some of these uses and disclosures may occur outside your State or Territory. If you have any concerns in this regard, you should contact us.
    
    
15. In order to ensure that you receive a personal and tailored service, your Personal Information may be transferred to one of our agents or authorised representatives who will be your primary point of contact with the organisation. It is a condition of our agreement with each of our representatives that they adopt and adhere to this privacy policy. You can be assured that your information will be maintained by any agent or representative in accordance with this policy. If you have any concerns in this regard, you should contact us.
    
    
16. In the event that we, or one of our associated entities, propose to sell our/its business we/they may disclose your Personal Information to potential purchasers for the purpose of them conducting due diligence investigations. Any such disclosure will be made in confidence and it will be a condition of that disclosure that no Personal Information will be used or disclosed by them. In the event that a sale of our, or one of our associated entities, business is effected, we/they may transfer your Personal Information to the purchaser of the business. As a client you will be advised of any such transfer.
    
    
17. There are other circumstances under which we may disclose your personal information, for example when disclosure is required or authorised by law (for example, disclosed to a government agency or where disclosure is necessary to protect our interests). We will also disclose your personal information if you instruct us to do so.

  

Marketing our Products and Service to you

18. We may use the Personal Information collected from you for the purpose of providing you with direct marketing material such as articles that may be of interest to you, however you may, by contacting us, request not to receive such information and we will give effect to that request. Please allow 2 weeks for your request to be actioned.

  

Accuracy of Records

19. We aim to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate complete and up to date. Please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Please also contact us if you believe that any of the personal information we have about you is not accurate complete or up to date. We may take steps to update personal information from publicly available sources such as telephone directories.

  

Access and Correction to Personal Information

20. You may at any time request access to your Personal Information and we will (subject to the following exceptions) provide you with access to that information either by providing you with copies of the information requested, allowing you to inspect the information requested or providing you with an accurate summary of the information held. We will, prior to providing access in accordance with this policy, require you to provide evidence of your identity. We usually provide personal information at no cost, however if any charge is applicable, you will be notified before receiving the personal information. Any charge we make for providing access will be reasonable.
    
    
21. We will not provide you access to Personal Information which would reveal any confidential formulae or the detail of any in house evaluative decision making process, but may instead provide you with the result of the formulae or process or an explanation of that result.
    
    
22. There may be reasons to deny access, such as when your request may unreasonably impact upon another person's right to privacy. If your access is denied, we will provide you with the reasons.
    
    
23. At all times we will endeavour to ensure that the Personal Information about you which we hold is up to date and accurate. If you become aware, or believe, that any personal information which we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or outdated, you may contact us (see contact details below) and ask for your personal information to be corrected. If we agree that the information requires correcting, take all reasonable steps to correct the information (or suggest alternative arrangements for updating our records). If we disagree with you, we will give you our reasons. If you request that we associate with the information a statement claiming that the information is not accurate, complete and up-to-date we will take reasonable steps to comply with this request.
    
    
24. We will endeavour to respond to any request for access within 30 days depending on the complexity of the information and/or the request. If your request is urgent please indicate this clearly.
    

  

Security of your Personal Information

25. Your Personal Information is generally held in your client file. Information may also be held in a computer database.
    
    
26. We will at all times take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information collected and held by us is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
    
    
27. By authorising us to communicate with you by e-mail, you are authorising us to act on any instructions without enquiring as to the identity of the sender.
    
    
28. If your instructions are ambiguous, incomplete or unclear we are under no obligation to act on your instructions. We will not be liable for any loss or damage which you may suffer or incur as a result of us following your email instructions. When we correspond with you by e-mail, our messages are not encrypted and may potentially be accessed by unauthorised persons.
    
    
29. All paper files are stored in secure cabinets/rooms. Access to our premises is controlled by only allowing authorised personnel to access those locations where personal information is stored. All computer-based information is protected through the use of access passwords on each computer and screen save passwords. Data is backed up each evening and stored securely off site.
    
    
30. As required by law, personal information must be obtained from you in accordance with the AML/CTF Act. For further information regarding this Act please refer to:
    http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/0/227C2F583293FB80CA2572C300123E5E/$file/AntiMoneyLaundCountTerrFin2006.pdf
    
    
31. Where personal information is no longer required by us we will dispose of it in a secure manner e.g. shredding to ensure that we remove information that could be used to identify you. It is a legislative requirement that we keep all personal information and records for a period of 7 years. Should you cease to be a client of this organisation, we will store your personal information on or offsite in a secure manner for a period of 7 years. After this, the information may be destroyed.

  

Use of Cookies

32. When you visit our website, details may be recorded about your visit, such as time and date, your server address, pages accessed, time spent and type of browser. This information is used in an anonymous form for statistical purposes and as such cannot identify you individually.
    
    
33. All browsers allow you to be notified when you receive a "cookie" and elect to either accept it or not. Your internet service provider should be able to assist you to set your preferences.

  

Identifiers

34. We will not collect any Identifier other than such details approved by the law, however we may disclose this information to external parties (e.g. Fund Managers) as authorised by you. Identifiers includes a number assigned by an organisation to an individual to identify uniquely the individual for the purposes of the organisation's operations such as TFNs, Medicare numbers etc.
    Sending Data Overseas and Third Party Websites
    
    
35. We will not send any personal information about you overseas, unless you consent to this, or we reasonably believe that the other country has privacy laws substantially similar to our own, or we provide the information in other circumstances giving like protection.
    
    
36. Avenue Capital Management's website contains links to other websites whose operator may or may not adhere to a privacy policy or be governed by the National Privacy Principles. When visiting these websites be sure to check the privacy policy as we are not responsible for privacy practices of those other parties.

Contact Details

If you seek any further information from Avenue Capital Management about this statement of our privacy policy generally, please contact our Privacy Officer Mandy Penkin at one of the reference points below:

Email:
Address: Suite 3, Level 2, Parramatta NSW 2150
Postal: PO BOX 406 Parramatta NSW 2124
Telephone: (02) 9633 3300
Fax: (02) 9689 2980

Changes to the Privacy Policy

This document sets out the current privacy policy of Avenue Capital Management. This document may be changed or amended from time to time. We reserve the right to change the policy at any time and encourage you to check the Avenue website (http://www.avenue.com.au) regularly for any updates to our Privacy Policy.

Version A1.0 (22/10/2009)

Disclaimer: Information contained in this document is of a general nature only. It does not take into account your personal financial situation or your overall strategy. Please consult your financial adviser before taking any action in relation to your finances.