Credit Reporting Policy

Effective Date: April 1, 2024

This Credit Reporting Policy applies to Afterpay Australia Pty Ltd ABN 15 169 342 947 (‘Afterpay’, ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’), and details how we collect and manage your "credit-related personal information" and is to be read together with our Privacy Policy and any other privacy or collection statement that we provide to you. This Credit Reporting Policy applies when you apply for an increase to the spending limit of your Afterpay Buy Now Pay Later account ("BNPL account").

The requirements of Part IIIA in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) ("Privacy Act") and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Version 2.3) ("Credit Reporting Code") apply to us.

For the purposes of this Credit Reporting Policy, “credit-related personal information” means ‘credit information’, ‘credit eligibility information’ and ‘CP-derived information’, as those terms are defined in the Privacy Act. Broadly, credit-related information includes the following information about you:

  • information that we may disclose to a credit reporting body; 
  • information that we obtain from credit reporting bodies; and 
  • information that we derive from such information, for example, a credit score.

Collection of credit-related personal information

Afterpay collects, holds and uses the following kinds of credit-related personal information about you:

  • identity information – such as your name, address, contact details and driver's licence details;
  • credit applications – information about consumer or commercial credit you have applied for (including the lender's name, type, term and amount of credit, and repayment details) and that we have made an information request about you; 
  • your consumer credit – consumer credit provided to you, including details about the lender's name, licence details, consumer credit type, maximum amount, the start and end dates, and repayment terms; 
  • default information about you – when a payment owed to us or another lender is overdue for 60 days or more; 
  • serious credit infringement information – whether, in the opinion of a lender, you have committed a serious credit infringement in connection with consumer credit; 
  • publicly available information – court proceedings, personal insolvency information or other publicly available information about you relating to your creditworthiness; and
  • credit scoring – scores, ratings, summaries, evaluations and other information relating to your credit worthiness which is derived by us or by a credit reporting body.

We use the credit-related information disclosed to us, including by a credit reporting body, to create credit scores and risk assessments regarding your creditworthiness.

How we collect and hold your credit-related personal information

We collect credit-related personal information from a range of sources including:

  • the data provided by you directly, or persons acting on your behalf (including through the application process for your BNPL account or when we derive information from your use of that account);
  • from credit reporting bodies; and
  • from the public domain.

We hold your credit-related personal information electronically in secure servers and in cloud storage, which may be located outside of Australia (see 'Overseas Disclosures' for more details).

Keeping your credit-related personal information secure is important to us. We take precautions to protect such information as set out in our Privacy Policy.

Why we collect, hold, use and disclose credit-related personal information

Afterpay collects, holds, uses and discloses your credit-related personal information to:

  • confirm your identity;
  • assess your application to increase the spending limit of your BNPL account (“Application”) and your ability to manage that increased credit;
  • help manage the credit provided to you, including collecting overdue payments and assessing your financial hardship requests;
  • derive credit scoring, ratings, summaries and evaluations about your credit-worthiness to use in our decision-making processes; and
  • comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may (as permitted by the Privacy Act and the Credit Reporting Code) disclose your credit-related personal information for the following purposes:

  • to our legal and financial advisors; and 
  • for other purposes, as required or authorised by law.

We will also share your credit-related personal information with our credit reporting body partner, illion Australia, whose contact details are set out below:

illion Australia

Overseas disclosures

We may disclose your credit-related personal information to overseas recipients, including recipients in the following countries:

  • New Zealand;
  • United States of America;
  • United Kingdom/EU;
  • Canada;
  • Philippines; and
  • China.

We only disclose your credit-related personal information to entities outside of Australia that we have engaged to perform our business functions or for the purposes of providing services to you. Where we do so, we ensure that the disclosure of and access to that information is secure and appropriate controls are in place. We take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipients of your credit-related personal information handle it in a manner consistent with the Privacy Act.

How to access or correct your credit-related personal information

You can request access or correction of your credit-related personal information by contacting us at [email protected].

If you make a request for: Please take note:

Access

We will ask for information to verify your identity.

We will generally provide you with access to this information within 30 days of a request.

However, there may be circumstances where we may deny access to some or all of the requested information, for example where giving access would be unlawful, denying access is required or authorised under Australian law or might prejudice enforcement activity.

There is no cost for making an access request, but we may charge reasonable administration costs for retrieval and providing access.

Correction

After receiving your request for correction, if we consider that the credit-related personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, we will take all reasonable steps to correct this information within 30 days of your request, or a longer period if agreed with you in writing.

Where necessary to resolve your correction request, we may consult with credit reporting bodies or other lenders. If we do not hold the information to be corrected, we will inform you in writing and set out your options.

There is no cost for making a correction request.

If we decline your access or correction request, we will provide you with a written notice setting out the reasons for the refusal (where reasonable to do so) and your options for making a complaint.

In some cases, it may be more appropriate to contact our credit reporting body (for example, if you would like to access your credit report, or if you wish to correct credit reporting information). Please contact our credit reporting body partner using the details above.

Making a complaint

You can raise a complaint about our potential breach of the Privacy Act or the Credit Reporting Code by specifying the nature of the complaint and contacting us at the details below:

We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days and, after investigating, provide you with our decision within 30 days unless we jointly agree a longer period with you.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint after it has been through our internal process outlined above, you can contact the following external dispute resolution schemes: 

Australian Financial Complaints Authority Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.afca.org.au

Phone: 1800 931 678 (free call)

In writing to: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001

Email: [email protected]

Website: oaic.gov.au

Phone: 1300 363 992

In writing to: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001

You can also contact the Code Compliance Committee about your complaint if it relates to our obligations or your rights under the Buy Now Pay Later Code at [email protected]. Please note that the Code Compliance Committee will not consider your complaint if you are still trying to resolve it with us or through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

Updates to this policy

Afterpay may amend this Credit Reporting Policy at any time. The updated version will be available at https://www.afterpay.com/en-AU/credit-reporting-policy. The revised version will be effective from the time we post it on our website. Afterpay may highlight any material changes to the Credit Reporting Policy that may impact you by notifying you by email or otherwise, and any such changes will take effect from the time Afterpay notifies you.