First Rate Exchange Services Limited (‘First Rate’ or ‘us’ or ‘we’) is committed to protecting and respecting your informational privacy.

This Privacy Notice explains how, when and why we use your personally identifiable information and also explains your rights in relation to that information. Your personally identifiable information is described and referred to in this Privacy Notice as your ‘personal information’ or your ‘personal data’.

This Privacy Notice also explains how others, including other organisations within the First Rate Group of companies, may or will use your personal data.

This is the Privacy Notice for:

• Our website https://www.firstrate.co.uk (‘our Website’);
• Visitors to our Website (including any third party that accesses our Website and is not employed by First Rate and/or acting in the course of their employment);

First Rate provides other businesses with award-winning foreign exchange services (please see the section below ‘Who we are and what we do’ for more information). Our Website is therefore intended for corporate use by potential business-to-business customers for the purpose of providing information about the services we provide.

By accessing and using our Website or completing our online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’, you agree to the collection, use, storage and transfer of any personal information you may provide to us under the terms of this Privacy Notice which is published in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’); and, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (‘PECR’).

However, please note that this Privacy Notice does not apply to third-party websites that are accessible via any links contained in our or their website. If you choose to click on those links you may permit third parties to collect and/or share your personal data with others. We are not responsible for any third-party websites or their Privacy policies.

Our services (including our website) are intended only for business customers and are not intended to be used by any person under the age of 18. We neither intend nor knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18. If we learn that we have unknowingly collected personally identifiable information about someone under the age of 18, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.

 

Identity of data controller

First Rate Exchange Services Limited, of Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ‘ICO’) as a data controller with registration reference Z6622513

If you have any enquiries, concerns or complaints about our data processing activities, please contact us either by:

• telephone on 03458 50 30 50 between 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday; or,
• email at [email protected]; or,
• post to Great West House, Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF

Alternatively, the ICO also provides a helpline and complaints service. The ICO is the United Kingdom’s independent regulatory authority in relation to data protection matters and information rights and can be contacted at: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF or at www.ico.org.uk or by telephone on 0303 1231113.

 

Who we are and what we do

First Rate provides other businesses with award-winning foreign exchange services. We are a recognised expert in the foreign exchange industry and operate a multi-billion pound wholesale business providing tailor-made travel money solutions for companies in the finance, travel and retail sectors.

Some of our products are offered ‘white label’ so that foreign exchange services can be sold by our corporate customers to their retail customers using their own corporate branding. Whether fully or partially outsourced, these products and services can add a valuable dimension to our corporate customers businesses by helping them to maximise their income while also boosting retail customer loyalty.

The purpose of our Website is to inform other businesses of the services that we provide.

 

Your responsibilities

Although it is our responsibility to ensure compliance with data protection laws we also ask you to act responsibly with your own personal data; so please:

• Make sure you read this Privacy Notice and make sure you understand its contents. If you have any questions about it please contact us at [email protected];
• If you believe your informational privacy has been compromised as a result of using our Website or your online enquiry, please contact us immediately;
• We use appropriate security measures to protect your informational privacy, but unfortunately, any form of data transmission which is based on using the Internet can never be guaranteed as completely secure. We cannot accept liability or responsibility for any unauthorised access to or loss of your personal data that is beyond the scope of the appropriate security measures that we have put in place.

 

Visitors to our website

What information do we collect about you?

We will collect information about you when you access or visit our Website (including when you complete the online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’); when you search our Website for products and services, or if you request further information from us.

The type of information we may collect from you when you access, visit or search our Website, may include your name, job title, your work or other e-mail address (if you complete the online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’); as well as information about your computer via analytics software such as Google Analytics or other similar technologies. The information we collect includes details of your visits to our Website, traffic data, location data, your IP address, operating system and browser type.

If you contact us, we may keep a record of any communication you make with us dependant on the nature and purpose of the communication.

 

How do we use the information we collect about you?

• To contact you in reply to your online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’, and to respond to and/or progress any further enquiries you may make;
• To keep you informed about our products and services that we offer and about our news and promotions;
• To manage, administer, maintain and improve our Website;
• For record-keeping purposes.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, please note that if your online enquiry results in business-to-business negotiations and/or the formation of a business-to-business contract with us, then separate terms and conditions (including appropriate data protection notices ) will apply.

 

How long do we hold your personal information?

We only retain your personal information for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes it was collected for, which includes: to respond and/or to progress your online enquiry and/or to, provide you with the corporate information you have asked to receive; or, to send you updates on our products and services; or, as required to satisfy any legal, accounting, regulatory or reporting obligations; or, as necessary to resolve disputes.

 

Basis of our lawful processing

The obligations imposed on us by data protection law means that we can only use your personal data if we have a lawful reason to do so. This section explains the lawful reasons we have for using your personal data:

 

Your consent

Where you have completed our online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’ you have given us your explicit consent to process your personal data for any of the following purposes:

• To contact you in reply to your online contact form or ‘new prospect enquiry form’, and to respond to and/or progress any further enquiries you may make;
• To keep you informed about the products and services that we offer and to keep you informed about our news and promotions;

You can withdraw your consent at any time by calling Customer Services on 03458 50 30 50 or by contacting us by email at: [email protected] .

Please also see the sections below ‘Keeping You Informed’ and ‘disclosing your data’

 

Our legitimate interests

Where processing your personal data is necessary for our own legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, provided that those interests are not outweighed by your individual rights and interests.

In summary, processing your personal data is necessary for the following legitimate interests:

• Website management, including administering your online enquiry and administrative tasks;
• Recording and monitoring telephone calls and emails for training purposes and to improve the quality of our services;
• Improving customer facing services, including managing complaints, solving issues via live chat support, messages, notifications, telephone, or email and asking you for a review of our products or services;
• Producing management information;
• Preventing crime and detecting fraud (see also and in addition to ‘our legal obligations’ below);
• Our direct marketing activities, including determining whether our marketing activities are effective;

 

Our legal obligations

Where processing your personal data is necessary to fulfil a legal obligation that we are required to comply with including (without limitation) adhering to the requirements imposed by UK legislation including the regulatory requirements imposed by the Data Protection Act 2018, UK GDPR and PECR 2003; and, the prevention and detection of fraud; responding to a request from the English courts or the police; defending legal rights; and, our record keeping obligations.

Processing Special Category Data and Children’s Privacy

Where we collect, process and store any of your special category data, we only do so with your explicit consent or where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims either when we are faced with any legal claims made against us or where we pursue legal claims ourselves. Our products and services are not directed at, nor do we knowingly collect data from, young persons under the age of 18.

 

TRANSFERRING DATA AND WHERE IS THE DATA STORED?

All of our principal data processing sites are located in the UK.

However, in some instances, we may choose to engage other companies to store or process your personal data on our behalf. In every case, where we choose to do that, we will ensure that any company that we engage is subject to the same standards of data security and provides you with the same level of personal data protection as we are legally required to provide.

This also means that if we transfer or store your information outside the UK or EEA, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected in an equivalent manner in accordance with our legal obligations in the UK and as set out in this Privacy Notice.

 

Keeping you informed

If your business and/or business representative has registered with us and/or enquired about our products or services we may also use the information we collect to let you and/or your business know about our other products and services and/or to keep you updated with information about promotional offers. This may include information about First Rate, products, services, events or promotions.

 

Disclosing your data

We never make any personal information you have provided to us available to third party companies for marketing purposes, nor do First Rate rent or trade email lists with other organisations or businesses.

We may occasionally use other companies to provide services to you on our behalf. These services may include but are not limited to answering your questions about our products or services, sending postal mail and e-mails, analysing data and to obtain professional advice. We will only provide those companies with the information they need to deliver the service we have engaged them for and they are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

We will disclose your information if required to do so by law; and, we may disclose your information if requested by a court or the police or other law enforcement agency.

 

How is your information protected?

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so. Please also see the section above on ‘Your Responsibilities’.

If you want detailed information on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

 

Cookies

To obtain further information relating to the Cookies operating on our website, please view our Cookies Policy.

 

Other websites

To the extent that this Website contains any links to other websites such as official regulating bodies; First Rate is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

 

Your Information Rights

The Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR, gives you a number of important Information Rights which in most cases you can exercise free of charge. However, your ability to exercise your Information Rights depends on various factors, and in some cases it will not be possible for us to agree to your request e.g. where legal exemptions apply, or where the specific right you seek does not apply to the type of information we hold.

In summary, your Information Rights are:

• The right to obtain confirmation from us as to whether or not we are processing your personal data and if we are, the right to be provided with certain supplementary information about our processing activities; however, please note that this Privacy Policy is already designed to provide you with that supplementary information;
• The right to ask us to correct any mistakes contained in the information we hold about you;
• The right to require us to erase your personal data in certain situations;
• The right to data portability, which means the right to receive (or for a third party you have chosen to receive) an electronic copy of the personal data you have given to us;
• The absolute right to object at any time to processing your personal data where we only use it for direct marketing;
• The right to object to decisions being taken about you based solely on automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or are similarly significant in how they affect you;
• The right to object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information;
• The right to otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

For further information on each of these Information Rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation, the link is here https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/

If you would like to exercise any of the rights above, please email us at [email protected]  or write to us at Data Protection, First Rate Exchange Services Limited, of Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF.  Let us have enough information to identify you and let us know the information to which your request relates.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Therefore, if you think any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, please email or write to us at the addresses given above as soon as possible so we can update our records.

 

Changes to this privacy policy

We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review and if we change our Privacy Policy we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect and how we use it.  You should therefore refer to this policy regularly.

This policy was last updated in February 2024.