At First Rate, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy

 

This Notice explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We may change this Notice from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Notice.

Any questions regarding this Notice and our privacy practices should be sent by email to [email protected] or by writing to us at First Rate Exchange Services Limited, Great West House, Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF.

 

Who we are

 

We’re First Rate Exchange Services Ltd. We are jointly owned by the Post Office and the Bank of Ireland. Our registered address is Great West House, Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF. We provide foreign exchange services to consumers and businesses in the UK.

 

Links from other websites

 

First Rate provides services to customers referred to us by major UK retailers such as John Lewis plc. You may be using our service after clicking on a link from a website owned by one of these companies. We may share your information with these website owners as set out below.

If you linked to our website from a retailer’s site, we cannot be responsible for the retailer’s privacy policies and practices. We recommend that you check the privacy notice provided at the retailer’s site.

 

How do we collect information from you?

 

We obtain information about you when you use our website to purchase foreign currency or when you contact us about products and services.

 

What type of information is collected from you?

 

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding which of our site pages you have accessed and when.

 

How is your information used?

 

We may use your information to:

 

• process orders that you have submitted;
• carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
• seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• notify you of changes to our services;
• send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest

 

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, to meet with our legal obligations or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

 

Who has access to your information?

 

If you have reached this website from a website owned by another company First Rate will pass your personal data to the Website Owner. However, they will require your explicit permission to contact you for marketing purposes. When you are using our website we may ask for your permission to allow the Website Owner or other parties to contact you.

We will not sell or rent your information to any other third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes unless you have specifically approved this in the course of purchasing foreign exchange from us.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we will have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. The only circumstance in which we will otherwise transfer your information will be when we are legally required to do so – for instance in response to a court order – or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

When you purchase foreign exchange from us the transaction will be processed by one or more third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale or transfer of some or all of our business and assets to a third party, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or protect our contractual rights. In any of these circumstances we will ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

 

Your choices

 

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about our products and services, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the online forms from which we collect your information.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: [email protected].

 

How you can access and update your information

 

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: [email protected], or write to us at: First Rate Exchange Services Limited, Great West House, Great West Road, Brentford, London, TW8 9DF.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information First Rate hold about you. In most circumstances we will provide this information in a timely manner on request.

 

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

 

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites or apps, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

 

Tackling fraud

 

We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce card fraud. We are legally obliged to verify your identity and we use specialist third party providers in order to do this. This will not affect your credit status. Providing false identity information to us is in itself a crime and may lead to your prosecution.

 

Use of ‘cookies’

 

Like many other websites, the First Rate website uses cookies. Cookies are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to better understand how our customers use our website. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

 

Transferring your information outside of Europe

 

All of our call centres and principal data processing sites are located in the UK. However, as part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (‘EU’). These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Notice.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

 

Website recording

 

Our website may also use a website recording service that records mouse clicks, mouse movements, page scrolling and any text keyed into website forms. The information collected does not include bank details or any sensitive personal data. Data collected in this way is for First Rate’s internal use only. The information collected is used to improve our website usability and is stored and used for aggregated and statistical reporting.

 

Further information or complaints

 

If you require further information or wish to raise an issue or a complaint with us, please contact our Customer Service Team on 0330 123 3396. Alternatively you can write to us at Customer Services, First Rate, Great West House, Brentford, TW8 9DF.

If you are not happy with our response you may wish to raise the issue with the Information Commissioner’s Office please see ico.org.uk/concerns for further details.

Review of this Notice

We keep this Notice under regular review. This Notice was last updated in July 2020.