HC Consumer Finance Philippines, Inc. (“Home Credit Philippines”) respects the privacy of our customers and users of our online platforms such as our mobile application. We strive to embed privacy in all of our processes in compliance with Republic Act No. 10173, also known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012, its implementing rules and regulations, and other issuances of the National Privacy Commission. We recognize the importance of protecting your personal information as well as the importance of transparency in the way that we collect, use, store, transfer/disclose, and dispose information derived from your use of our products, services, online portals, and mobile applications.
1. Collection of Information
Personally Identifiable Information
“Personally identifiable information” is information that can be used to uniquely identify an individual such as name, password, age, civil status, gender, mailing address, email address, telephone number, mobile number, income, employment details, financial information, credit info, photographs, and other personal info. We also consider personal information and sensitive personal information as defined under the Data Privacy Act of 2012 as personally identifiable information.
We collect personally identifiable information when you apply for our services, and when you register an account on our mobile applications and online platforms. You may be asked to provide us with personally identifiable information through our website, our mobile apps, through our Point-of-Sale devices or through paper application forms.
Mobile Device Data & Mobile App Permissions
Other than personally identifiable information defined above, Home Credit Philippines may also process the following data through your use of the mobile app: mobile device data or other identifiers; location data; phone data; and mobile app usage data such as traffic volume, crash logs, diagnostics, and page views and taps.
The Home Credit mobile application may likewise request, with your prior consent, that you activate certain app permissions including, but not limited to, location, emails, messages, phone calls, calendar, contacts, and files that we need for fraud prevention, security, and to determine your eligibility for Home Credit Philippines’ products and services. We may also request to send you push notifications about your account or the mobile app.
The general description of the mobile app’s behavior can be referenced through the permissions module of your mobile phone. If you wish to change our access or permissions, you may do so in your device’s settings. You may deactivate the permissions requested by the Home Credit mobile app after the submission of any application for our services. However, certain features or resources meant to enhance security or usability may not work or may produce a degraded experience for you.
The processing of personal information and metadata by the mobile application is consistent with the purposes we explained in this privacy notice.
Third-party App Data
With your consent, Home Credit Philippines may also collect your name, mobile number and email address connected to Facebook and Gmail. External websites and companies with hyperlinks to and from Home Credit Philippines’ online platforms may collect personally identifiable information about you when you visit their websites. This privacy notice does not extend to those external websites and companies. Please refer directly to their privacy notice regarding their handling of your personally identifiable information.
Cookies and Other Information on a User’s Machine
Home Credit Philippines’ products, services, sites and mobile apps may employ cookies and other similar and applicable technologies. We may use third party website analytic tools that employ cookies to collect certain non-personally identifiable information concerning your use of our websites, such as referring web site addresses, page views and browser types. This allows us to serve you a more personalized experience and more relevant content.
2. Use of Personally Identifiable Information
Having accurate information about you permits us to provide you with a smooth, efficient, and customized experience. The personally identifiable information you share will be used according to the contracts that you execute with us for our services. Specifically, we may use information collected about you through the mobile application for the following purposes.
a. to assess your eligibility to use our products and services, including, but not limited to, credit verification, credit scoring, automated processing of the loan applications, loans collection, and complying with eKYC (Know Your Customer) regulations required by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Anti-Money Laundering Council;
b. for the creation of your user account in the Home Credit Philippines Mobile Application;
c. to enable mobile app features and functionalities;
d. to verify your identity and/or other information you provided to us;
e. to detect and prevent fraud, money laundering and/or other illegal uses of our services;
f. to send you information about Home Credit Philippines, including news about product updates, events, and other promotional materials, but only if you agree to receive such communications. Home Credit Philippines will not share any personally identifiable information with third parties for marketing purposes without your consent;
g. to provide customer service or support and to resolve issues and complaints;
h. for data analytics, data profiling and other legitimate interests, which will help us understand your needs and to help us improve our services.
3. Storage and Security of Personally Identifiable Information
Personally identifiable information provided to Home Credit Philippines are stored in a secure database under our control. We have taken reasonable and appropriate steps to protect the information you share with us, including, but not limited to, physical security controls, equipment, software, and technical security controls such as encryption to prevent unauthorized access, use or disclosure of personally identifiable information. Always keep your Home Credit Philippines mobile application updated to ensure you experience the latest and most secure features. We retain your personally identifiable information only for the reasonable period necessary for us to deliver our services, to meet legitimate business purposes, when necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of any legal claim, and to comply with retention periods provided by other laws governing Home Credit. For instance, despite a request for deletion, we are required by the Anti-Money Laundering Act and its implementing rules to retain your personal data for a period of at least five (5) years.
4. Retention of Personally Identifiable Information
We retain your personally identifiable information for varying periods of time in compliance with legal requirements and operational business needs. Among the reasons we retain your personal data are:
(i) for the reasonable period necessary for us to deliver our services,
(ii) to meet legitimate business purposes,
(iii) when necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of any legal claim, and
(iv) to comply with retention periods provided by laws governing Home Credit.
For example, despite your request to delete your account in the My Home Credit mobile app, we are required by the Anti-Money Laundering Act and its implementing rules to retain transactions and customer records for a period of at least five (5) years. If an account is also the subject of a case filed in court, the retention may also extend beyond the five-year period. Similarly, pertinent BIR Regulations also require us to retain for 10 years electronic data, books of accounts, and other accounting records necessary for tax filing purposes.
Factors we consider when deciding how long we retain your information include: how long we’ve had a relationship with you or provided you with our services, our legal obligations such as in the example above, or legal positions we’ve taken, such as any applicable statutes of limitations.
When the purposes to process your information no longer exist, the applicable retention periods have expired, or we are no longer legally obligated to retain them, we will either delete, de-identify, or anonymize your personal information, or if not yet possible, then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until such deletion is possible.
5. Persons under the Age of 18
Home Credit Philippines will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from any person under the age of 18. Home Credit Philippines encourages parents to instruct their children to never give out personal information when online. Parents who are concerned about the transfer of personal information from their children may contact us.
6. Data Subject Rights
Under the Data Privacy Act, you have the right to be informed, the right to object, the right to access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure or blocking, the right to damages and the right to file a complaint.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, you may contact us at (02) 753 5711. These rights, however, are subject to certain limitations. As such, we may decline requests that are excessively repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort, are against public interest, jeopardize the privacy of others, or are extremely impractical or unreasonable.
7. Contact Home Credit Philippines’s Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Home Credit Philippines’ Data Protection Officer provides support for any data privacy related inquiries or complaints. You may contact Home Credit Philippines’ DPO through the following information:
Office Address: 16/F Ore Central Bldg., 31st Street, Taguig City, Philippines
Email address: dpo@homecredit.ph
Individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding our privacy practices should first contact our DPO. Our DPO will always use reasonable efforts to address and settle any requests or complaints brought to our attention.
List of Active Partners
8. Shareholder’s Privacy Notice
To ensure the protection of your personal data, Home Credit Philippines’ privacy notice incorporates our shareholder, Krungsri | Bank of Ayudhya’s privacy notice as well. Please see the privacy notice here.
Last updated on August 25, 2023