Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice co-exists with our Terms and Conditions and together these govern the general practices of this website. We encourage all our users to familiarise themselves with this statement and our site terms.

PDL Finance Limited t/a Mr Lender ("we", "us", and "our") will be what is known as the 'Controller' of the personal data you provide us with. Mr Lender's Company Registration Number is 06738633, Registered Office 2 Leman Street, London, E1W 9US, UK. You can contact us using the details set out at the end of this notice.

We take our data protection and privacy responsibilities seriously. This notice explains how we collect, use and share personal information in the course of our business activities, including:-

  • What information we need
  • Why we need it and how we use your information
  • The legal basis for using your personal information
  • How we share your information
  • Transferring personal information globally
  • How we protect and store personal information
  • Your legal rights available to help manage your privacy
  • How to contact us for more support and to exercise your rights

We may amend this notice from time to time to keep it up to date with legal requirements and the way we operate our business. Any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email.

You might find external links to third party websites on our site. This notice does not apply to your use of a third-party site.

What we need

The type of information we collect or that is passed to us via a third party (with your consent) may vary depending on the product(s) you select. However, in general we will require the following information:

  • Full Name
  • Contact details
  • Date of birth
  • Employment status, job title, name of employer and income
  • Marital status
  • Gender
  • Bank details
  • Approximate monthly outgoings and spending commitments, including number of dependants
  • Information about your credit history
  • IP address, operating system version, browser version.

If you do not provide us with this information we will not be able to process your loan application and facilitate you with a loan.

We will not collect any personal data from you that we do not need to process your loan application.

We may collect other information about you indirectly from credit reference agencies (who may search the Electoral Register), fraud prevention agencies or other organisations. For more information about how we collect and share information with these third-party organisations please see the "Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies" section below.

Some of the information we collect is sensitive personal data (also known as special categories of data). In particular, we may process personal data that relates to your health (such as your medical history), and any criminal convictions and offences. If we use sensitive personal data, we will usually do so on the legal basis that it is in the wider public interest, to establish, take or defend any legal action or, in some cases, that we have your permission. In any case, we will keep to all laws that apply.

We may collect information about the way you manage your account(s) for analytical purposes, to improve our service offerings and better tailor our products to you. For more information about the non-identifiable information we collect from you automatically through your use of the site please see our Cookie Policy.

Finally, we collect any other information which you choose to share by communicating with us using any of the channels available to you. As well as recording telephone calls (we will monitor and/or record telephone calls from and to you in the interests of customer service and for training purposes and to combat fraud. This may be done either by ourselves or a third party on our behalf), web chats and emails may be stored for quality control purposes, to combat fraud and to retain an accurate record of our dealing with customers. As well as the content of communications, we may store data relating to the duration, frequency and response times associated with communications.

Why we need it and how we use your information

We need this information to:

  • Process loan applications submitted by you
  • Manage your account with us and to send you post-contractual notices;
  • Provide our services to you;
  • Communicate with you about your account or about new products which you may be interested in, using our telephone, email or webchat channels;
  • Handling any complaints or queries you raise about our products or services;
  • Contact you in relation to other products and services (depending on your preferences);
  • Undertake research, assessment and analysis (including credit and/or behaviour scoring, market and product analysis) to enable us to develop and improve our services to you and other customers and to protect our interests; and
  • Administer our systems and to report information to our advertisers.

Automated Processing

The way we analyse personal data relating to our services may involve profiling. This means that we may process your personal data using software that can evaluate your personal circumstances and other factors to predict risks or outcomes. Automated decisions are necessary for us to enter into a contract. For example, we may decide not to offer our services to you, or we may decide on how much you can borrow, based on your credit history and other financial information we have collected about you. You have the right to contact us to ask for a person to review an automated decision. We may use profiling, or other automated methods, to make decisions about you that relate to the following.

  • Credit and affordability checks to see whether your application will be accepted
  • Credit limits
  • Identity and address checks
  • Screening people who may be classed as ‘politically exposed’ (for example, if you are a government minister)

Banking Transaction Information

During your loan application we may also require further banking or building society account information (Banking Transaction Information (BTI)) to help us assess your suitability for a loan. If we do require this information we will safely and securely direct you to one of our third party provider’s portals and they will ask you to provide your bank account details to enable them to gain access to your BTI. As soon as your BTI is received by the third party it will be reported back to us in the form of a completed search. We will use this information to help us assess your suitability for a loan or to promote other third-party products that may be of interest to you. For further information on how we collect and use BTI please click here. If you borrow from us and do not repay in full and on time, we will register such information with CRAs who will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs and FPAs to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe.

The legal basis for using your personal information

We will only collect, use and share your personal information where we are satisfied that we have an appropriate legal basis to do this. This may be because:

  • you have provided your consent to us using the personal information (for example in relation to our electronic direct marketing activities);
  • our use of your personal information is in our legitimate interest as a commercial organisation (for example, in order to undertake research, assessment and analysis to enable us to develop and improve our products and services) - in these cases we will look after your information at all times in a way that is proportionate and respects your privacy rights: you have a right to object to processing as explained in the "Your legal rights" section below;
  • our use of your personal information is necessary to perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract with you (for example in order to make/receive payments and send you contractual notices); and/or
  • our use of your personal information is necessary to comply with a relevant legal or regulatory obligation that we have (for example, where we are required to make disclosures to a regulatory body, or to a law enforcement agency or tax authority).

If you would like to find out more about the legal basis for which we process personal information please contact us using the details set out at the end of this notice.

Sharing your information with credit reference agencies

In order to process your application, we will perform credit and identity checks on you with one or more credit reference agencies (“CRAs”).

To do this, we will supply your personal information to CRAs and they will give us information about you. This will include information from your credit application and about your financial situation and financial history. CRAs will supply to us both public (including the electoral register) and shared credit, financial situation and financial history information and fraud prevention information.

We will use this information to:

  • Assess your creditworthiness and whether you can afford to take the product;
  • Verify the accuracy of the data you have provided to us;
  • Prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering;
  • Manage your account;
  • Trace and recover debts; and
  • Ensure any offers provided to you are appropriate to your circumstances.

We will continue to exchange information about you with CRAs while you have a relationship with us. We will also inform the CRAs about your settled accounts. If you borrow and do not repay in full and on time, CRAs will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs and FPAs to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe.

When CRAs receive a search from us they will place a search footprint on your credit file that may be seen by other lenders.

The identities of the CRAs, their role also as fraud prevention agencies, the data they hold, the ways in which they use and share personal information, data retention periods and your data protection rights with the CRAs are explained in more detail below. CRAIN is also accessible from each of the CRAs who we partner with;

CRAIN links:

TransUnion Equifax Experian

Sharing your information with fraud prevention agencies

When you apply for a product from us you confirm that all the information you have given to us is true and complete and you authorise us to check the following records about you:

  • Our own; and
  • Those at a credit reference agencies (CRAs)
  • Those at fraud prevention agencies (FPAs)

We will make checks with CRAs and FPAs such as assessing your application for credit and following approval of your application, we may also make periodic searches at CRAs and FPAs to enable us to manage your account with us. The purpose for the checks includes ID verification, money-laundering prevention and fraud prevention.

If false or inaccurate information is provided by you or fraud is identified you could be refused certain services, finance or employment.

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;
  • Tracing debtors and recovering debt;
  • Checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance;
  • Checking details of job applicants and employees; and
  • Using from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies.

For a full fair processing notice for the purpose of fraud prevention and detection please click here

Who else do we share your personal information with

We share your information in the manner and for the purposes described below:

  • Any third party who introduced you to us so that they can contact you and for their own accounting and administration purposes; and
  • With credit reference and fraud prevention agencies as described above;
  • With third parties who help manage our business and deliver services. These third parties have agreed to confidentiality restrictions and use any personal information we share with them or which they collect on our behalf solely for the purpose of providing the contracted service to us. These include IT service providers who help manage our IT and back office systems;
  • Our underwriters;
  • We may share in aggregate, statistical form, non-personal information regarding the visitors to our website, traffic patterns, and website usage with our partners or advertisers;
  • Anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under this agreement; and
  • We may also give out information about you if we have a duty to do so or if the law requires or allows us to do so. In these circumstances we may transfer your information to our regulators, law enforcement agencies and other governmental authorities
  • We may also wish to share some of your information (including the contact details that we hold for you) with our carefully chosen third party partners so that they can also provide you with information (by SMS, post, email or telephone) about products and services that might be of interest to you. One of the reasons that we may wish to share your data with such third parties, including the application details you have already provided, is that if Mr Lender cannot offer you a loan, they may be able to facilitate your loan application. This may involve completing further credit checks and you may receive additional contact. We will also use your information in this way where we have your consent to do so. Our partners have their own privacy notices. To view T.UK's click here, to view Stop Go Network click here and to view JamDoughnut’s click here. You should read these carefully to ensure you provide the appropriate consent. We may also share some of your information with third parties, where we believe it is in your best interest to do so.

Transferring your personal information globally

Your personal information may be transferred and stored in countries outside the EEA, including the United States of America, that are subject to different standards of data protection. We will take appropriate steps to ensure that transfers of personal information are in accordance with applicable law and carefully managed to protect your privacy rights and interests; and that transfers are limited to countries which are recognized as providing an adequate level of legal protection or where we can be satisfied that alternative arrangements are in place to protect your privacy rights. Where we transfer your personal information outside Mr Lender or to third parties who help provide our products and services, we obtain contractual commitments from them to protect your personal information.

How we protect and store personal information

Security

We have implemented and maintain appropriate technical and organisational security measures, policies and procedures designed to reduce the risk of accidental destruction or loss, or the unauthorised disclosure or access to such information appropriate to the nature of the information concerned. Measures we take include:

  • Using Secure Socket Layer encryption technology;
  • Limiting the access our staff have to your information to the minimum required to perform their duties; and
  • Maintaining firewalls and security technologies to minimise the risk of external attack to our servers;
  • Ensuring that all your information is subject to data protection laws; and
  • Regularly monitoring our security systems.

Storing your personal information

We will store your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, as explained in this notice. In some circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, regulatory, tax, and/or accounting requirements. In specific circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenges, or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation relating to your personal information or dealings.

What are your legal rights and how can you manage your privacy

Under data protection legislation, you have several rights (depending on the lawful bases for which we use your personal information) regarding the use of your personal data, as follows:

Right to Access - If at any point you wish to either confirm whether your personal data is being processed and/or access the personal data we hold on you, you can request to see this information, usually free of charge, and we will respond to this request within a 1-month period. We may however charge a reasonable fee when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive particularly if this is repetitive and for further copies of the same information.

Right to Withdraw Consent/Object to Direct Marketing - If you agreed to us and third parties contacting you about other products and services during the application process but later decide you no longer wish to receive such communications, you can update your contact preferences by contacting a member of our team by calling 0208-532-5022 or by clicking here. All messages we send to you will also explain how you may withdraw consents you have given.

Right of Data Portability - You also have the right for certain data you have provided Mr Lender with to be provided to you in a structured and commonly used electronic format (for example, a Microsoft Excel File), so that you can move, copy or transfer this data easily to another data controller. You may also request to transmit this data directly to another organisation where it is practical for us to do so.

Right to Rectification - You are entitled to have data corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

Right to Erasure - In certain circumstances you have the right to request that your personal data is deleted if it is no longer needed or there is no longer a legitimate reason for the processing, or if the data in question has otherwise unlawfully been processed.

Right to Object - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data (note that this only provides you with the right to raise your objections, not a blanket right to have any and all processing cease).

Right to Restrict - You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances, including if you have contested its accuracy and while this is being verified by us, or if you have objected to its processing and while we are considering whether we have legitimate grounds to continue to do so.

How to find out more or exercise your rights

If you would like more information write to our Customer Services Department, PDL Finance Limited trading as Mr Lender, PO Box 366, Loughton, Essex, IG10 9EW.

You can also contact the CRAs that we use. Their contact details are:

  • Trans Union, Consumer Services, One Park Lane, Leeds, Yorkshire, LS3 1EP or call 0330 024 7574 or email [email protected]
  • Experian, Consumer Services, Landmark House, Experian Way, NG2 Business Park, Nottingham, NG80 1ZZ or phone 0344 481 8000.

How to complain about the use of your data

If you wish to raise a complaint about how we handled your personal data, including in relation to any of the rights outlined above, you can contact us by clicking here or calling 0208-532-5022 and we will investigate your concern.

In the first instance, if you are not fully satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your data unfairly or unlawfully, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by clicking here. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can find further information about the ICO and their complaints procedure here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns

Last updated 01.02.2023