OUR PRIVACY STATEMENT

How Mortgage Solutions Merseyside (MSM) Use Your Personal Information

Our main use of your personal information is to assist you in your application for a mortgage or provide a specific service you require. This will include your name, address and telephone number. If you are applying or enquiring about health or life insurance, it may also include some data concerning your health. We may also obtain some details from credit reference agencies.

After completion of the service, which we provide to you, your personal data may be archived and retained on our database and manual files. Such data will only be used in order to assist us to comply with our legal requirements or if your account is re-activated in relation to any subsequent application or request for a service.

If you apply to Mortgage Solutions Merseyside for insurance Mortgage Solutions Merseyside will pass your details to the insurer. If you make a claim, any information you give Mortgage Sense or the insurer may be put on a register of claims and shared with other insurers to prevent fraudulent claims. A list of participants is available from the insurer.

Occasionally, Mortgage Solutions Merseyside may contact you by letter, telephone, email or otherwise to inform you about other products and services that may interest you. Mortgage Sense will request that you sign our mortgage document form agreeing to this. If at a later stage you wish not to be contacted in the future please write to us at the following address:

Customer Contact, Mortgage Solutions Merseyside, 107 Grange Lane, Gateacre, Liverpool, L25 5JZ.

Unless you have given us your consent, Mortgage Sense will not provide information about you to other companies to use for their own marketing purposes.

Occasionally, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) compliance review bodies audit a sample of our customer records to assess our compliance with the regulations. Whenever this happens, strict confidentiality conditions are always imposed.

Under the Act you have the right to access the information Mortgage Solutions Merseyside hold about you on record. The Act allows Mortgage Solutions Merseyside to charge a £10.00 fee for this service. If anything is inaccurate or incorrect, please let us know and we will correct it.

If you do not want to receive unsolicited mail from other companies, you can prevent this by registering with the Mail Preference Service. In addition the Telephone and Fax Preference Services enable you to object to you receiving unsolicited marketing phone calls or faxes from other companies. To register, simply telephone the appropriate number below:

Mailing Preference Service 0207 291 3310

Telephone Preference Service 0207 291 3320

Fax Preference Service 0207 291 3330

For more details about all the preference services, please see the Direct Marketing Associations website at: www.dma.org.uk

The Data Protection Act

The Data Protection Act 1998 (the "Act") puts obligations on users of personal information and lays down the principles for its use. One principle states that information has to be processed fairly and lawfully. This means that you are entitled to know how Mortgage Solutions Merseyside intend to use any information you provide. You can then decide whether you would want Mortgage Sense to have that information.

To provide the highest level of customer service Mortgage Solutions Merseyside need accurate customer information. You can help by informing Mortgage Solutions Merseyside whenever your circumstances change, either by telephone or post.

Credit Referencing

If you apply for a credit based product (e.g mortgage or commercial loan) from Mortgage Sense, a search will be performed with a credit reference agency. The agency will keep a record of the search.

When applying for a mortgage Mortgage Sense may search public records, such as the Electoral Roll, that are available from credit reference agencies to help us verify your identity.

Associations linking your financial records may be created on credit reference agency records when you apply for a mortgage in joint names. Your financial records, and those of anyone financially associated with you, may be considered in any future applications you make.

You have the right to apply to the credit reference agencies for a copy of your credit file. If there is anything incorrect on your file, you have the right to ask the agency to add a notice of correction.

We use Equifax Plc and/or Experian Limited for our credit referencing. Their contact details are as follows:

Equifax Plc

PO Box 1140,

Bradford,

BD1 5US

Tel 0870 010 0583

www.equifax.co.uk

Experian Ltd,

Consumer Help Service,

PO Box 8000,

Nottingham,

NG1 5GX

Tel 0870 241 6212

www.experian.co.uk

If you have been refused credit you can get advice from your local Trading Standards department, Citizens Advice Bureau or Consumer Advice Centre, or through the agencies` websites. The Information Commissioner also produces a useful leaflet entitled No Credit? You can obtain a free copy from the Information Commissioners website at: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk or by telephoning 0870 600 8100

Credit Scoring

When you apply for a mortgage the details you provide, the information Mortgage Solutions Merseyside already have and information from credit reference agencies are used to assess credit risk using a credit system.

Various factors in all these details help the mortgage lenders assess the risk and determine the mortgage they are willing to offer you.

Representation

Mortgage Solutions Merseyside are representatives for other insurance products. We will ask you to give your consent for us to contact you regarding the services available. Upon completion of any contract that has been arranged in relation to the insurance products, the provider may use your details to contact you about other products and services they provide. If you do not wish them to do this please ask them to remove your details from their customer contact system.

Anti-Money Laundering & Statutory

To comply with money laundering regulations, and to help stop criminals using financial products or services to launder money, there are times when we need to confirm (or reconfirm) the name and the address of our customers. Mortgage Solutions Merseyside may need to do this whether you are applying to be a new customer or have been one for sometime. This information may be shared with other companies within the Mortgage Solutions Merseyside in order to assist them to comply with their legal obligations.

Some Acts of Parliament oblige us to disclose information about our customers to certain bodies with statutory powers.

Email

If you email Mortgage Solutions Merseyside , or give us your email address, we will keep a record of it. Mortgage Solutions Merseyside may use it to contact you occasionally about our products and services unless you ask not to do so. Mortgage Solutions Merseyside will not give your email address to any unauthorised third parties.

When emailing us, always use the email facility on our website to make sure that the content of your email is secure. If you send us emails in other ways, remember that it will be insecure and could be intercepted. If you do send us insecure email, please keep any confidential information in it to a minimum. Mortgage Solutions Merseyside will do the same when we reply.

Telephone Calls

Mortgage Solutions Merseyside may record telephone conversations to offer you additional security, resolve complaints and improve our service standards.

Conversations may also be monitored for staff training purposes.

Responsibility for Customer Confidentiality

All our employees are personally responsible for maintaining customer confidentiality. Mortgage Solutions Merseyside provide training and education to all our staff to remind them about their obligations. Our policies and procedures are regularly audited and reviewed.

If you think your confidentiality has been broken, please write to:

Controlling Director,

Mortgage Solutions Merseyside

107 Grange Lane

Gateacre

Liverpool

L25 5JZ

Business Customers

The Act does not generally apply to data relating to companies but it does cover data relating to partnerships and sole traders. When we receive an application from such a business we may perform a search with a credit reference agency on the individual company directors or partners, and their data will be used in accordance with this statement.