Post Office Personal Loans Terms & Conditions

Transcription

1 Post Office Personal Loans Terms & Conditions 1. INTRODUCTION Post Office Personal Loans are provided by Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited. In this Agreement, we, Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited (company registration number ) of One Temple Back East, Bristol, BS1 6DX, agree to lend and you agree to borrow the amount of credit shown at (C) on page 1 of your Agreement. Post Office Limited (company registration number ) of Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London, EC2Y 9AQ is the Credit Intermediary. 2. PAYMENTS 2.1 You agree to repay the Total amount payable in the amounts and on the dates shown in the Agreement. The instalments have been calculated to include interest payable on the amount of credit. Payment will be by direct debit unless we agree otherwise. If any due date for payment falls on a bank holiday or weekend, then payment will be made on the next business day. Punctual payment is essential. 2.2 Any repayment you make shall, at our reasonable discretion, be applied in the following order: (i) against any costs and fees you have incurred; (ii) in satisfaction of accrued interest (including late payment interest); (iii) against the principal sum borrowed. 3. WITHDRAWAL 3.1 You will have a period of time in which to withdraw from the Agreement. Please refer to page 2 of your Agreement for further details. If you do not withdraw from the Agreement within the requisite period, you will be bound by its terms. The Agreement will then continue unless brought to an end by you or us. 3.2 If you fail to repay the total Amount of credit plus any interest that has accrued from the date the credit was provided until the date it is repaid within the requisite

2 period, this will be deemed to be a breach of the Agreement and we may recover the sums owed by you as a debt. 3.3 If you withdraw from this Agreement in accordance with its terms, please note that you would only be withdrawing from this Agreement and not the agreement for goods or services that you have entered into. 4. EARLY REPAYMENT 4.1 You can repay all or part of the credit borrowed under this Agreement at any time. If you wish to make an early full or partial repayment, you must: (a) give us notice orally or in writing. Our contact details can be found at the Early repayment section of your Agreement; and (b) make the repayment before the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day after we receive notice from you, or on or before any later date specified in the notice. 4.2 Where you take these steps the amount you owe us will be reduced by an amount equal to the sum of the amount paid and any statutory rebate, where applicable. 4.3 On or after making an early partial repayment, you may make a request for an early repayment statement which we will provide before the end of the period of seven working days from the day after we receive your request. 4.4 Please note that where you opt to make an early partial settlement, your remaining balance can then be repaid within a shorter credit period or your remaining instalments can be reduced and original credit period can remain unaltered. We will give effect to any partial early repayments by reducing the term of your Agreement unless you request otherwise. 4.5 Please note that payments to your account will be allocated to the oldest outstanding debt first. 5. OUR RIGHT TO TERMINATE AND DEMAND PAYMENT 5.1 Subject to service of the relevant notices required by the Consumer Credit Act 1974, we have the right to make written demand for any unpaid fees and costs debited to your

3 account and the whole of the Total amount payable less any instalments that you have made upon the happening of any of the following events: (a) you fail to observe and perform any provision contained in this Agreement or are in breach of this Agreement; (b) you fail to make a payment by its due date; (c) if you have a bankruptcy petition or order presented or made against you (or its equivalent in Scotland) or have execution levied against any of your assets; (d) if any information provided by you before or after the date of this Agreement is found to be inaccurate; (e) if you are a partnership, the partnership is dissolved for any reason; (f) you propose/enter into a voluntary arrangement with your creditors; (g) you die; (h) we have reasonable grounds to suspect unauthorised use of the credit such as fraud, theft or dishonesty; or (i) we have any legal, regulatory or other objectively justifiable reason. 6. COSTS AND EXPENSES 6.1 If you fail to comply with any provision of this Agreement, we shall be entitled to recover from you our reasonable costs and expenses. Details of these charges are shown in the Charges for late payment section of the Agreement. 6.2 Interest payable on any default sums shall be on a simple interest basis and will be charged 29 days after the day on which you receive a Notice of Default Sums. 6.3 Tracing Agents fees will be charged at the agent s standard rates which are current at that time. If litigation takes place you will have to pay legal costs and will be responsible for all our reasonable legal costs incurred.

4 6.4 At our discretion, the charges shown in the Charges for late payment section of the Agreement and in this clause 6 will either be debited to your account, payable by you on demand or be dealt with as provided by Clause USE OF LOAN 7.1 Where you have provided us with details of other accounts to be settled, you authorise us to, or alternatively you shall pay the relevant amount to the persons to whom you owe money. We may settle any loan amount directly by cheque or BACS system. 7.2 Any request you make for us to settle other accounts on your behalf must be made in writing and sent to us with your credit application. 7.3 You acknowledge that the Cash Loan (A) shown in Total amount payable, or any part of such Cash Loan is not made under pre-existing or contemplated future arrangements between us and any supplier of goods or services and is not subject to any other restrictions concerning its use. 8. ASSIGNMENT 8.1 We may transfer, assign, or charge to any other person this Agreement or any or all of our rights under this Agreement or our duties. You will be informed of any such transfer as soon as reasonably possible unless there are no changes to the way in which your account will be serviced. If after any such transfer, the arrangements for servicing the credit do change, you will be informed on or before the first occasion that they do. Your legal rights will not be affected and your obligations will not be increased as a result. 8.2 You may not transfer or assign any of your rights or duties under this Agreement. 9. RIGHT OF SET-OFF If a refund is due to you under this Agreement, but you owe us money on any other agreement you have with us, you authorise us to, and agree that we may, set off the refund against any amounts due. 10. DATA PROTECTION - using your information

5 Post Office Personal Loans are provided by Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited. Both Post Office Limited and Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited are data controllers and will use your information in the way described by this Agreement. Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited is a member of the Bank of Ireland Group. In this statement, our Group means the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland and any of its subsidiary or associated companies. (a) Considering your application To help us decide whether to enter into this and any future agreement with you, we may use: any information you have given us; information we already hold about you; information we receive from enquiries we make about you; and information we get from your other dealings with us or our Group. We may make and keep copies of your passport, driving licence or other proof of your identity that you provide. We may also search your record held by credit reference agencies or ask them to make enquiries for us. We may give credit reference agencies the information they need to make their enquiries. The credit reference agencies will keep a record of our search, whether or not your application goes ahead. This record will be available to other organisations that make similar searches and could affect your ability to get credit elsewhere for a short period of time. Information the credit reference agencies hold about you may already be linked to records relating to other people. (This is called an association.) You may be considered to be financially linked to these people and we may consider their credit records when considering your application. If you are applying for credit with someone else or you have told us about a financial link with another person, you must be sure that you are entitled to:

6 release information about that other person and anyone else you have referred to; and authorise us to search, link or record information about you (and anyone you have referred to) at credit reference agencies. Credit reference agencies will create a link between your credit records and those of any person you have said that you have a financial relationship with. When you or the people you have a financial relationship with apply for credit in the future, both your and their credit records will be taken into account. This process will continue until one of you tells the credit reference agencies that there is no longer a financial link. We may also use a credit-scoring system or other automated system for making a decision. (b) Using and sharing your information We will give credit reference agencies any information: that we hold about you; about your payment record; about your Agreement with us (including if you have broken it); and about you not telling us about any change of address, if any payment is overdue. It is important that you give us accurate information. We will check your details with fraud prevention agencies. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information. We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when: checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities; managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities;

7 recovering debt; checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance; or checking details of job applicants and employees produce and analyse statistics and carry out market research; help us identify products and services which may be of interest to you (unless you have asked us not to) Please contact us at if you want to receive details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies. We and other organisations may access and use, from other countries, the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies. We and other organisations may access and use the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies. Where it is legitimate to do so we may also give information about you and your dealings with us to: anyone who has guaranteed to us that they will meet your liabilities if you can t; your insurer; anyone acting for you; anyone who introduced you to us; any finance house, motor trade, vehicle-recovery agent, lawyer or law enforcement agency; companies or other organisations which keep registers of assets and interests in them; credit-industry and fraud-prevention networks (to detect and prevent crime); or any regulatory or government organisation (if we have to do so by law).

8 We may also use selected third parties to process your information and provide services on our behalf. Where we do this, we will ensure that adequate procedures and safeguards are put in place to protect your personal data at all times in accordance with the Data Protection Act Please write to the address shown below if you would like details of credit reference agencies and others we get information about you from, or details of who we can give information about you to. By law, you have a right to see these details. We will only transfer personal data to countries within the European Economic Area (EEA) on the same basis as it is transferred within the UK. We will only send personal data to a country or territory outside the EEA if that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of individuals when processing their personal data. We may link information between any of your accounts and other products and services you have with our Group. We will not use these links for marketing purposes without your permission. We may keep information about you after your account has closed to meet our legal obligations and business needs. (c) Direct marketing We may contact you from time to time by post, telephone, or SMS with details of special offers or other products and services we or third parties offer unless you have told us otherwise. For this purpose we may make use of an automated decision making programme now or in the future. We may also share information about you with: 1. our Group; 2. Post Office Limited; You have a legal right to stop us from contacting you for direct marketing purposes. Please write to Customer Services Department, Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited, 1 Donegall Square South, Belfast, BT1 5LR if you wish to exercise this right and we will stop doing so within a reasonable amount of time. (d) Transferring your information abroad From time to time we may transfer information about you to previously approved companies or people based outside the European Economic Area. We will only do so if

9 the person or company agree to give your information the protection we would have to give it in the UK and to act on our instructions. (e) Sensitive information You may have given us information about your nationality and/or whether you have any disability. You do not have to give us this information if you do not want to. If you choose to provide details of any disability, we will only use it to provide additional assistance where possible. (f) Your right to information You have a legal right to receive a copy of the information we hold about you. To see this information, write to Customer Services Department, Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Ltd, 1 Donegall Square South, Belfast, BT1 5LR. You must pay a fee before we provide the information. We will tell you the current fee when you write to us. 11. GENERAL 11.1 You shall immediately notify us of any change in your address Where more than one Customer is detailed in this Agreement, all persons named as Customers shall jointly as well as severally comply with the terms of this Agreement. This means that each of you could be held liable for the payment of all sums due under this Agreement We may decide from time to time, not to enforce some or all of our rights under this Agreement. If we do this, we will not be prevented from subsequently enforcing those or other rights Any supplier or other person through whom this Agreement may have been introduced, negotiated or conducted, is not our agent for the purposes of such introduction or negotiation, subject as provided by law. If the word agent is used, it shall be construed in a descriptive sense only and not as implying any legal relationship This Agreement takes effect only when it has been signed by all parties.

10 11.6 This Agreement and any dealings with you prior to any agreement being made shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with Northern Irish law if you are ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland, or Scottish law if you are ordinarily resident in Scotland or English law if you are resident anywhere else. 12. COMPLAINTS AND NOTICES 12.1 If you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, please either speak or write to the person or department that has given you the service you would like to complain about. We can usually resolve your complaint straight away. If we cannot, we will tell you how long it will be before we can give you an answer. If you are unhappy with the response you receive, please refer to 12.2 below Please contact Head Office by calling us on: (lines are open from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm Monday to Friday). We will take the details of your complaint, and pass it to the right person, who will contact you within two working days. If you would like to put your complaint in writing, please address it to: Customer Services Department, Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited, 1st Floor West, PO BOX 3191, 1 Temple Quay, Bristol BS99 7AX. When we receive your letter of complaint we will reply to you within five working days. We will always deal with your complaint as quickly as we can and we aim to resolve it within fifteen working days. However, in some cases it may take us a little longer. If this is the case we will keep you updated by sending you a further letter, advising you of the current status of your complaint, within four weeks of receiving it. If we have not been able to deal with your complaint within eight weeks of receiving it we will write to you and explain the stage we have reached and what we plan to do next. If at this stage you are not happy with the progress we have made you have the option of referring your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service If you have a complaint that we do not resolve to your satisfaction, the Financial Ombudsman Service may be of assistance. They can help resolve disputes between financial institutions and their customers. They are entirely independent and the service is free of charge to consumers. Ask us for a leaflet, or contact the Financial Ombudsman Service for details at: The Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR. You can also contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) by phone: calls to this number are normally free for people calling from a 'fixed line' phone - but charges may apply if

11 you call from a mobile phone calls to this number are charged at the same rate as 01 or 02 numbers on mobile phone tariffs. These numbers may not be available from outside the UK - so please call FOS from abroad on enquiries@financial ombudsman.org.uk Website: If you wish to send any notice or request to us under any statute or otherwise, you may contact Bank of Ireland Personal Finance Limited, 1st Floor West, PO BOX 3191, 1 Temple Quay, Bristol BS99 7AX.