Rhubarb legal limited has partnered Business Finance Solutions UK Ltd, who are a member of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under Firm Reference Number 732760.
Business Finance Solutions UK Limited is a credit broker and not a lender. Business Finance Solutions UK Limited operates with a panel of lenders from whom we may be paid a commission. The amount of commission received may vary depending on the product or lender chosen.
The Registered office address: Suite 25, The Millhouse Business Centre, Station Road, Castle Donington, Derbys DE74 2NJ | Registered in England and Wales. Company registration number 06866606.
A commercial mortgage or loan may be secured against your home or property. Where it is, your home or property may be repossessed if you do not keep up the mortgage / loan repayments. Some forms of commercial funding and commercial loans are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Privacy Policy
Why should you read this document?
During the course of dealing with us, we will ask you to provide us with detailed personal information relating to your existing circumstances, your financial situation and, in some cases, your health and family health history (Your Personal Data). This document is important as it allows us to explain to you what we will need to do with Your Personal Data, and the various rights you have in relation to Your Personal Data.
What do we mean by “Your Personal Data”?
Your Personal Data means any information that describes or relates to your personal circumstances. Your Personal Data may identify you directly, for example your name, address, date or birth, National Insurance number. Your Personal Data may also identify you indirectly, for example, your employment situation, your physical and mental health history, or any other information that could be associated with your cultural or social identity.
In the context of providing you with assistance in relation to your Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance requirements your Personal Data may include:
- Title, names, date of birth, gender, nationality, civil/marital status, contact details, addresses and documents that are necessary to verify your identity
- Employment and remuneration information, (including salary/bonus schemes/overtime/sick pay/other benefits), employment history
- Bank account details, tax information, loans and credit commitments, personal credit history, sources of income and expenditure, family circumstances and details of dependents
- Any pre-existing Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance products and the terms and conditions relating to these
The basis upon which our Firm will deal with Your Personal Data
When we speak with you about your Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance requirements we do so on the basis that both parties are entering a contract for the supply of services.
In order to perform that contract, and to arrange the products you require, we have the right to use Your Personal Data for the purposes detailed below. Alternatively, either in the course of initial discussions with you or when the contract between us has come to an end for whatever reason, we have the right to use Your Personal Data provided it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your rights are not affected. For example, we may need to respond to requests from our Compliance Service Provider relating to the advice we have given to you, or to make contact with you to seek feedback on the service you received. On occasion, we will use Your Personal data for contractual responsibilities we may owe our regulator The Financial Conduct Authority, or for wider compliance with any legal or regulatory obligation to which we might be subject. In such circumstances, we would be processing Your Personal Data in order to meet a legal, compliance or other regulatory obligation to which we are subject.
The basis upon which we will process certain parts of Your Personal Data
Where you ask us to assist you with for example your insurance / ethical investments, in particular life insurance and insurance that may assist you in the event of an accident or illness, we will ask you information about your ethnic origin, your health and medical history (Your Special Data). We will record and use Your Special Data in order to make enquiries of insurance / investment providers in relation to insurance products that may meet your needs and to provide you with guidance regarding the suitability of any product that may be available to you.
If you have parental responsibility for children under the age of 13, it is also very likely that we will record information on our systems that relates to those children and potentially, to their Special Data.
The arrangement of certain types of insurance may involve disclosure by you to us of information relating to historic or current criminal convictions or offences (together “Criminal Disclosures”). This is relevant to insurance related activities such as underwriting, claims and fraud management.
We will use special Data and any Criminal Disclosures in the same way as Your Personal Data generally, as set out in this Privacy Notice.
Information on Special Category Data and Criminal Disclosures must be capable of being exchanged freely between insurance intermediaries such as our Firm, and insurance providers, to enable customers to secure the important insurance protection that their needs require.
How do we collect Your Personal Data?
We will collect and record Your Personal Data from a variety of sources, but mainly directly from you. You will usually provide information during the course of our initial meetings or conversations with you to establish your circumstances and needs and preferences in relation to Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance. You will provide information to us verbally and in writing, including email.
We may also obtain some information from third parties, for example, credit checks: lenders on our behalf will be completing Credit searches using Credit Reference Agencies such as Experian/Equifax, please find the following link in order to access their Credit Reference Agency Information Notice (CRAIN) https://www.experian.co.uk/legal/crain/ https://www.equifax.co.uk/crain/, information from your employer, and searches of information in the public domain such as the voters roll. If we use technology solutions to assist in the collection of Your Personal Data for example software that is able to verify your credit status. We will only do this if we have consent from you for us or our nominated processor to access your information in this manner. With regards to electronic ID checks we would not require your consent but will inform you of how such software operates and the purpose for which it is used.
What happens to Your Personal Data when it is disclosed to us?
In the course of handling Your Personal Data, we will:
- Record and store Your Personal Data in our paper files, mobile devices and on our computer systems (websites, email, hard drives, and cloud facilities). This information can only be accessed by employees and consultants within our Firm and only when it is necessary to provide our service to you and to perform any administration tasks associated with or incidental to that service
- Submit Your Personal Data to Product Providers/Mortgage Lenders/Commercial Lenders and/or Insurance Product providers both in paper form and on-line via a secure portal. The provision of this information to a third party is essential in allowing us to progress any enquiry or application made on your behalf and to deal with any additional questions or administrative issues that lenders and providers may raise.
- Use Your Personal Data for the purposes of responding to any queries you may have in relation to any Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance product providers, you may take out, or to inform you of any developments in relation to those products and/or polices of which we might become aware
Sharing Your Personal Data
From time to time Your Personal Data will be shared with:
- Investment Providers/Mortgage Lenders/Finance Lenders and Insurance Providers.
- Third parties who we believe will be able to assist us with your enquiry or application, or who are able to support your needs as identified. These third parties will include but may not be limited to, our Compliance Advisers, Product specialists, estate agents, providers of legal services such as estate planners, conveyancing, surveyors and valuers (in each case where we believe this to be required due to your particular circumstances).
In each case, your Personal Data will only be shared for the purposes set out in this customer privacy notice, i.e. to progress your Investment / Mortgage / Finance and / or Insurance enquiry and to provide you with our professional services.
Please note that this sharing of Your Personal Data does not entitle such third parties to send you marketing or promotional messages: it is shared to ensure we can adequately fulfil our responsibilities to you, and as otherwise set out in this Customer Privacy Notice.
We do not envisage that the performance by us of our esrvice will involve Your Personal Date being transferred outside of the European Economic Area.
Security and retention of Your Personal Data
Your privacy is important to us and we will keep Your Personal Data secure in accordance with our legal responsibilities. We will take reasonable steps to safeguard Your Personal Data against it being accessed unlawfully or maliciously by a third party.
We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is being sent to us.
Your Personal Data will be retained by us either electronically or in paper form for a minimum period of 6 years following the service you receive from us, although your data could be held for a longer period where this may be needed to meet the requirements of our regulatory bodies.
Your rights in relation to Your Personal Data
You can:
- request copies of Your Personal Data that is under our control
- ask us to further explain how we use Your Personal Data
- ask us to correct, delete or require us to restrict or stop using Your Personal Data (details as to the extent to which we can do this will be provided at the time of any such request)
- ask us to send an electronic copy of Your Personal Data to another organisation should you wish
- change the basis of any consent you may have provided to enable us to market to you in the future (including withdrawing any consent in its entirety)
Rights Regarding Automated Decision Making – aside from where the information is necessary for entering into a contract, or you have given your explicit consent, you have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.
What is automated decision-making? Some decisions for acceptance for finance facilities can be made automatically. Automated decision-making is the process of making a decision by automated means without any human involvement.
How to make contact with our Firm in relation to the use of Your Personal Data
If you have any questions or comments about this document, or wish to make contact in order to exercise any of your rights set out within it please contact: Emma Robison
If we feel we have a legal right not to deal with your request, or to action, it in different way to how you have requested, we will inform you of this at the time.
You should also make contact with us as soon as possible on you becoming aware of any unauthorised disclosure of Your Personal Data, so that we may investigate and fulfil our own regulatory obligations.
If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled Your Personal Data you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO our number is Z1771899, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Complaints Procedure
If you feel you have grounds for complaint, please speak with Emma Robison, 0345 50 50 888 or email emma@bfs.ltd.uk in the first instance. A copy of our Complaint Handling can be found below. This page explains our complaints procedure and your rights if you remain dissatisfied.
Our commitment to you
- We aim to respond to all complaints in a prompt, consistent and fair manner.
- Your complaint will be investigated by our Compliance Officer who will not be directly involved in the matter that is the subject of your complaint. The member of staff will have the authority to settle your complaint.
- If we are unable to resolve your complaint within three business days of receipt, we will contact you to explain why we are not in a position to resolve your complaint and give you an indication of when we will make further contact.
- In the unlikely event that your complaint has not been resolved within eight weeks of original receipt, we will send you a letter explaining why we have still not resolved your complaint and tell you when we will make further contact.
- Our final response will advise of our findings and, where appropriate, what action is being taken to resolve the matter. We will address the subject matter of your complaint, and where the complaint is upheld, we will offer a resolution that is consistent with treating all of our customers fairly.
- If you telephone us during our investigation and the member of staff handling your complaint is not available, then another member of our team will be able to help you.
Your rights
- If you are dissatisfied with our final response, you can either ask us to reconsider or you can refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (see details below).
- Eight weeks after us being in receipt of your complaint, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, if we have replied or not.
- If you decide to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, you must do this within 6 months of the date we issue our final response to you. After this time the Ombudsman may refuse to consider the matter.
General
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who have set out specific rules for the handling of complaints. Our procedure is compliant with the FCA rules but if you wish to take your complaint further please see the link Our consumer leaflet: ‘Want to take your complaint further?’ (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)
Treating Customers Fairly
Business Finance Solutions UK Limited ensures clients are at the heart of all that we do. We are fully committed to providing the highest standards of customer service.
Our customers are our most valuable asset, and our aim is to ensure we deliver a user-friendly, robust, reliable and cost-effective service to all concerned.
As part of our overall approach we are fully committed to treating our clients fairly and as such we endeavour to meet their expectations of high quality service.
Our Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) policy is centred around the guidance provided by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to ensure we consistently deliver fair outcomes to our customers and take responsibility for both Business Finance Solutions UK Limited as an organisation, and our staff (at all levels) providing an enhanced service quality to clients, based on a culture of openness and transparency.
Central to our Treating Customers Fairly ethos is our commitment to providing clear and concise information, free of “jargon” and written in plain English.
Our service
- We ascertain the appropriateness of the requested service for all new customers prior to accepting a deal, ensuring it is in line with their knowledge and experience.
- We continually aim to understand the needs of our customers.
- We aim to keep our clients fully informed in a clear and fair manner that is unambiguous and not misleading.
- We ensure our services are delivered with clarity and transparency and do not contain hidden conditions or rely on complex technical definitions
- We will keep an accurate and comprehensive record of all our dealings with a customer, so that in the event of any dispute or discrepancy, we will be able to provide a full breakdown of interchanges between all parties.
- We make certain our clients understand the risks associated with our services at the outset of an instruction, where appropriate.
- We work hard to ensure that service and risk information remains clear and prominent at all times.
- In the unlikely event that there is a conflict of interest, we will inform our customers as soon as possible once we become aware of it.
Our policies are in line with the current guidance from the FCA and is in line with the principles of the FCA that “a firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly”.
