Privacy Statement | Wirex

1. About this Privacy Statement  

 We take your privacy very seriously and are committed to ensuring the protection of your personal information, no matter where you are located.  

This Privacy Statement (Statement) applies to all personal information collected and processed by Wirex Australia Pty Ltd (ACN 659 803 148  (Wirex and together with its group,  Wirex Group).  In this statement, references to “we”, “us” or “our” are references to Wirex.  Our principal address is ‘Governor Macquarie Tower’, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney, NSW 2000 and our privacy email address is privacy@wirexapp.com.  

Please be aware that Wirex collects and handles your personal information in accordance with its legal obligations, including those under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). 

Wirex provide and/or distribute a wide range of products and services. This Statement describes how your personal information is collected and handled by Wirex.  

During our relationship with you, we may tell you more about how we collect and handle your information – for example, when you receive product terms and conditions.  You should always read these documents carefully.   

Sometimes we update our Statement.  You can always find the most up-to-date version on our website_https://wirexapp.com   

Our website uses small data files called cookies to improve functionality and your user experience (see our Cookies policy at the end of this page for more information).   

2. Collection, use and sharing  

What information do we collect?  
We may collect, process and use various categories of personal information at the start of, and for the duration of, your relationship with us. Also, on occasion, we may also collect information about you from other people and organisations. 

We collect personal information when you:  

• enquire about, apply for, or use products and services  
• contact us to make an enquiry or give us feedback 
• visit our website or use our digital services  
• participate in other activities we offer, such as competitions or surveys 
• talk to us or do business with us.  

While we are required to collect some types of personal information to meet our legal obligations, we do attempt to keep our collection of your personal information to what is necessary to offer you the products and services you require. Depending on those products and services, or your interactions with us, we may collect the following types of personal information: 

• basic personal information, including name and address, date of birth and contact details; 
• financial information, including account and transactional information and history; 
• goods and services we provide to you; 
• visual images and personal appearance (such as copies of passports or real-time biometric facial scans); and 
• online profile and social media information and activity, based on your interaction with us and our websites and applications, including for example your login information, Internet Protocol (IP) address, smart device information, location coordinates, online and mobile app security authentication, mobile phone network information, searches, site visits and spending patterns 

On occasion, we collect and handle sensitive information. This may include: 

• criminal history and political affiliation, where it is relevant for our regulatory and/or legal obligations 
• Biometric information (such as fingerprints or face), where this information is collected and used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification 

On occasion, we may collect and handle information that is in the public domain, such as from: 

• online forums, websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other social media (for example, if you use social media to make a complaint) 
• public registers (for example, those kept by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission or Land Registry Services).   

See ‘Who do we share your information with?’ (Collection, use & sharing, below) for details of third parties we may share information with.  

How do we use your information? 

 We’re careful about how we use your information to deliver our products and services. We also use your information for other reasons, such as to better understand you, your needs, and to let you know about other products and services you might be interested in. 

Here is a list of the ways we may use your personal information.  

Purpose 

How we use your personal information 

Serving you as a customer 

 We use your information to deliver our products and services including to: 

• assess and process your applications for products and services 
• administer and manage existing products or services you have with us 
• manage our relationship with you or your business 
• improve our service to you and your experience with us 
• communicate with you or your representatives about our products and services 
• let you know about other products and services that may be of interest to you.  

Improving our business 
We use your information to improve the products and services we provide through activities such as: 

• reviewing customer feedback and assessing how you use our products and services 
• testing and validating the effectiveness of products, services and system enhancements 
• monitoring and reviewing online chats and other business activity for quality assurance and training. 

Managing our operations 
We use your information to manage our operations including to: 

• deliver our products and services 
• make and manage customer payments and transactions 
• collect and recover money that is owed to us 
• respond to complaints and seek to resolve them 

Managing security, risk and crime prevention
We use your information to: 

• prevent, detect and investigate suspicious or fraudulent activities 
• investigate health and safety incidents involving our people and customers 
• support the management of our information security and network controls to prevent cyber-attacks, unauthorised access and other criminal or malicious activities. 

To comply with our legal obligations 
Where required, we use your personal information to comply with the law, including our regulatory obligations, including to: 

• confirm your identity 
• share relevant information with law enforcement agencies, tax authorities and other regulatory bodies 
• screen applications and monitor accounts to identify criminal activity such as fraud, terrorist financing, bribery, corruption and money laundering 
• investigate financial crime. 

Managing our business
We use your information to run our business in an efficient and proper way. This includes managing our financial position, business capability and planning, testing systems and processes, as well as managing communications, corporate governance, and audit. 

Performing analytics activities 
Sometimes we combine information we have about you and our other customers, for example transaction information, with data from other sources, such as third party websites or the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We use this information to: 

• help us understand trends in customer behaviour including how products and services are used 
• improve the products and services we offer 
• improve the quality of our data 
• develop products and services that better meet our customers’ needs and behaviours 
• understand and manage our risks better. 

De-identifying information
Sometimes we de-identify your personal information, for example transaction information, and use this to: 

• provide insights and analytics services to other organisations 
• share de-identified information with other organisations 

We may also use your personal information to support any changes to the ownership of products or services or the make-up of Wirex. For example, we may: 

• sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business, or our assets, including products or services 
• bring other businesses into the Wirex Group 
• stop providing a particular product or service. 

We may also collect, use and share your information for other reasons where the law allows or requires us to. 

Direct marketing 

From time to time, we may also use your personal information to tell you about products and services we think may be of interest and value to you, but we will stop if you tell us to. 

We may contact you by various means, including by mail, telephone, email, SMS or other electronic means, such as through social media or targeted advertising through Wirex websites. 

If you do not want to receive direct marketing offers from us, you can opt-out by: 

• Our marketing emails. By clicking “unsubscribe” in any emails we have sent. 
• Our marketing text message. By texting “STOP” in any text messages we have sent. 
• Our postal marketing material. By contacting us at: privacy@wirexapp.com 

Who do we share your information with 

We may share your information with third parties for the reasons mentioned in How do we use your information? or where the law otherwise allows or requires us to. 

The types of third parties are listed below.  

Type of third party 

Description 

Other members of the Wirex Group 
We may share your information between members of the Wirex Group. This helps us offer you a high-quality customer experience. You can read about how Wirex Group members may use your information in How do we use your information?  

Authorised Third Parties 

We may share information with third parties where you have authorised us to do so or where we are legally required. They include: 

• any third parties that you have authorised to act for you (such as accountants, financial counsellors, legal representatives, agents, financial advisors) 

Third Parties that can verify your information 

This includes organisations that can verify information that you have supplied when applying for a product or service, or making a claim, including: 

• other banks and financial institutions that you may have products and services with. 
• commercially available third party databases 
• credit reporting bodies and credit providers. 

Our Service Partners 

We may share your information with our service partners, external service providers and other organisations that help us to supply products and services. These include: 

• organisations that we partner with to supply products and services, for example,  loyalty program partners and our product issuer. 
• external service providers that we engage to do some of our work for us, for example legal service providers and information technology and cloud service providers. 
• auditors, insurers and re-insurers 
• organisations that assist us to identify, investigate or prevent fraud or other misconduct. 
• organisations that provide us with information, including publicly available information, so we can tell you about products and services we think may be of interest and value to you  If you do not wish for your information to be used in this way you can tell us by opting out of receiving direct marketing communications (see Direct Marketing above). 

Strategic Referral Partners 

We may share your information, with external parties with whom Wirex has entered into strategic alliance or referral arrangements to enable you to inquire about the services or products they offer. 
A product refers to any offering of features and benefits to a Customer. 
This may include products that allow a Customer to: 

• make a financial investment; 
• facilitate payments (e.g. clearing and settlement facilities).

Other financial services organisation 

We may collect and share your information with other banks, third party payment providers, superannuation funds and financial services providers to provide you services, for example to process your transactions, facilitate payment reversals and provide refunds.  

Government and law enforcement agencies 

We may share your information with regulatory bodies, government agencies and law enforcement bodies to comply with our legislative or regulatory obligations in any of the jurisdictions where we operate. 

Sending information overseas 

Sometimes, we may send your information overseas, including to: 

• Wirex Group members that are located in Singapore, the United Kingdom 
• service providers or third parties who store data or operate outside Australia 
• complete international transactions, such as currency exchanges 
• organisations we partner with to provide products and services 
• comply with laws and help government or law enforcement agencies. 

If we do this, we make sure there are appropriate privacy, data handling and security arrangements in place to protect your information. 

3. Changes to the way we use your information

From time to time we may change the way we use your information. Where we believe you may not reasonably expect such a change we will notify you and will allow a period of at least 30 days for you to raise any objections before the change is made. However, please note that in some cases, if you do not agree to such changes it may not be possible for us to continue to operate your account and/or provide certain products and services to you through the Wirex app. 

4. Accessing your information 

Accessing, updating and correcting your information 

You can contact us and ask to view your information. For more detailed information, we may ask you to fill out a request form. If your information isn’t correct or needs updating, let us know straight away. 

How can I access my information? 

You can ask us for a copy of your information. To get a copy of the information we have about you, you cancontact us at: privacy@wirexapp.com 

How will we handle you request? 

There is no fee to ask for your information, but sometimes we might charge a fee to cover the time we spend gathering the information you want. If there’s a fee, we’ll let you know how much it is likely to be, so you can choose if you want to go ahead. 

We try to make your information available within 30 days after you ask us for it. 

In some cases, we can refuse access or only give you access to certain information. For example, we might not let you see information that involves other people. If we do this, we will write to you explaining our decision. 

Can you correct or update your information? 

It’s important that we have your correct details, such as your current home address, email address and phone number. You can check or update your information at any time via you’re the Wirex app 

If you think your personal information is incorrect, contact us to investigate the issue (see We’re here to help below). 

We’ll try to respond to your request within 30 days. If we can’t, we’ll let you know why it’s taking longer. 

If we don’t think the information needs correcting, we’ll write to let you know why. You can ask us to include a statement with the information that says you believe it is inaccurate, incomplete, misleading or out of date. 

5. Communications about your account 

We will contact you with information relevant to the operation and maintenance of your Wirex account (including updated information about how we process your personal information), by a variety of means including via, email, text message, and in-app notifications. If at any point in the future you change your contact details you should tell us promptly about those changes. We may monitor or record calls, emails, text messages or other communications in accordance with applicable laws.

6. Fraud prevention 

We may access and use information from fraud prevention agencies when you open your account and periodically to: 

A.   manage and take decisions about your accounts; 

B.   prevent criminal activity, fraud and money laundering; and 

C.   check your identity and verify the accuracy of the information you provide to us; 

Application decisions may be taken based solely on automated checks of information, for example from fraud prevention agencies and internal Wirex records. To help us make decisions on verifying your Wirex account, as well as transaction limits on your Wirex account, we look at information you give us when you apply for a Wirex Account; including biometric data such as your photograph and/ or facial scan, information regarding your location, age, nationality and/ or citizenship and other information which enables us to verify your identity and perform a risk assessment for money laundering and fraud prevention purposes. 

We will also profile your Wirex Account to assign a risk rating for the purposes of fraud and unusual transaction monitoring and unauthorised access prevention. The information we will use to profile you will include your age, bank country of residence and status as a politically exposed person or otherwise. 

We will continue to collect and monitor information about how you manage your Wirex account including your account balance, payments into your account, the regularity of payments being made, and any default in making payments, while you have a relationship with us. This information may be made available to other organisations (including fraud prevention agencies and other financial institutions) so that they can take decisions about you. If false or inaccurate information is provided and/or fraud is identified or suspected, details will be passed to relevant fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies and other organisations may access and use this information. 

We cooperate fully to the extent of our legal obligations in the prevention of fraud, money laundering and counter-terrorism. If we, or a fraud prevention agency, determine that you pose a fraud, money laundering or other criminal risk, we may refuse to provide the services you have requested, or we may stop providing existing services to you. A record of any fraud, money laundering or other criminal risk will be retained by the fraud prevention agencies, and may result in others refusing to provide services, financing or employment to you. Fraud prevention agencies can hold your information for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to six years. When fraud prevention agencies process your information, they do so on the basis that they have a legitimate interest in preventing fraud and money laundering, and to verify your identity, in order to protect their business and to comply with laws that apply to them.

7. How long we keep your information

By providing you with products or services, we create records containing your information, such as customer account records and activity and transaction records. Records can be held on a variety of media (physical or electronic) and formats, but they are primarily held electronically. 

We manage our records to help us to better serve our customers (for example for operational reasons, such as dealing with any queries relating to your account) and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Records help us demonstrate that we are meeting our responsibilities and to keep as evidence of our business activities. Retention periods for records are determined based on the type of record, the nature of the activity, product or service, the country in which the relevant Wirex company is located and the applicable local legal or regulatory requirements. 

We (and other Wirex group companies) normally keep customer account records for up to six years after your relationship with Wirex ends. Retention periods may be changed from time to time (or waived where deemed low-risk) based on business or legal and regulatory requirements. Where there has been no activity on your Wirex account since it was opened, we may delete your data after a period of 6 months, as you will be deemed an "unactivated user". 

If there has been any transactional activity on your account, we will maintain your data until you request that we delete it, unless we are obligated to maintain such data to comply with our legal obligations. We may on exception retain your information for longer periods than those stated above, particularly where we need to withhold destruction or disposal based on an order from the courts or an investigation by law enforcement agencies or our regulators. This is intended to make sure that Wirex will be able to produce records as evidence, if they're needed. 

We will endeavor to anonymise or aggregate your data if we intend to use it for analytical purposes or trend analysis. 

Wirex will use reasonable endeavours to maintain appropriate physical, electronic and organisational procedures to ensure that your personal information and other data is treated securely and in accordance with this Statement, and to protect such data against unauthorized access or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. 

Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access. Wirex does not give any representation, warranty or undertaking that the personal information you provide to us will be secure at all times, and to the extent Wirex has fulfilled its obligations under no circumstances shall Wirex be responsible for any losses, damages, costs and expenses which you may suffer or incur arising from unauthorised access to or use of your personal information. 

If you would like more information about how long we keep your information, please contact us at: Privacy@wirexapp.com 

8. Additional rights

Making a privacy complaint 

If you have a concern or complaint about how we have handled your personal information (including your credit information), let us know and we’ll try to fix it. We try to get things right the first time – but if we don’t, we’ll do our best to sort it out. If you’re not satisfied with how we respond to your complaint about how we’ve handled your personal information, there are other things you can do. 

How can you make a complaint? 

To make a complaint, contact one of our staff or customer service teams. We’ll look into the issue and try to fix it straight away. 

What else can you do? 

If you’re not satisfied with our response after you’ve been through our internal complaints process, you can lodge a dispute through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), our external dispute resolution provider. 

AFCA provides consumers and small businesses with fair, free and independent dispute resolution for financial complaints. 

Australian Financial Complaints Authority 

Visit: www.afca.org.au 

Email: info@afca.org.au 

Phone: 1800 931 678 (free call) 

Mail: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001 

You can also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if your complaint is about your privacy or how we handled your credit information. 

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner 

Visit: oaic.gov.au 

Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au 

Phone: 1300 363 992 

Mail: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001 

Additional rights in Asia 

Singapore Customers of our Singapore Branch 

Additional rights for customers in Singapore are set out in the Singapore Privacy Notice. You may request a copy of this Notice, or further information relating to your rights, by contacting the Singapore Data Privacy Officer by email. 

Cookies 

An explanation of the types of cookies we use and why. 

• What are cookies? 
• Different types of cookies 
• How we use cookies 
• How to block or delete cookies 

What are cookies? 

• Cookies are text files that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you access a website. As you browse, cookies gather and store some information about the way you use that website. 
• Cookies allow the website to recognise your device each time you visit, providing you with a better experience because the site learns your preferences as you browse. Some types of cookies also perform essential functions to enhance how the site works. 

Different types of cookies 

• Session cookies 
  Session cookies allow websites to track your movements from page to page and are used for a number of reasons, such as remembering items in a shopping cart. These cookies are usually erased when you close your web browser. 
• Persistent cookies 
  Persistent cookies are stored on your computer or mobile device between browser sessions for a pre-defined amount of time. These allow the site to remember user information or settings across the site, or in some cases across different websites. They also enable targeted advertising. 
• First and third party cookies 
  First party cookies are set by the website you’re browsing. Third party cookies come from other websites or servers, for functions such as advertising pop-ups or banners on the page you’re viewing. 
• Necessary cookies 
  Necessary cookies are either session or persistent cookies, and can be delivered by a first or third party. These cookies perform functions such as keeping your site visit secure and remembering you between pages, for example when you navigate from page to page.  
• Functional cookies 
  Functional cookies can be either session or persistent cookies, and can be delivered by a first or third party. They remember information such as usernames or language settings and may allow the site to display important alerts. These cookies aren’t considered necessary, and can be blocked by the user, although this may impact how the site functions. 
• Tracking and social cookies 
  These cookies can be either session or persistent cookies, and are delivered by a first or third party. They’re not essential for the function of the website, but may improve experience by providing content relevant to you and your interests. 

How we use cookies 

• Wirex uses a combination of the cookies listed depending on which parts of our sites you visit and what you’re trying to do. You can control how cookies are used on your computer or device by changing your browser settings.  From time to time our web pages contain special offers and we may use cookies to provide customers with these offers. This requires you to have cookies enabled to ensure these cookies are stored on your computer when applying. 

How to block or delete cookies 

• Cookies are supported by most web browsers, but you can set your browser to block cookies and you can delete them whenever you like. 

If you decide to delete or block certain cookies, special offers contained on the web pages may not be provided. 

To change your web browser preferences: 

Google Chrome 

Open your Chrome browser > go to Customise and Control Google Chrome > Settings > Main Menu > Advanced > Privacy and Security > Content Settings > Cookies. Then you can choose your settings. 

For more instructions visit how to adjust cookie settings on mobile devices. 

Safari 

Go to Settings > Safari > Preferences > Privacy. Then you can choose your settings.   

For more information, including on mobile visit how to adjust cookie settings on Apple devices. 

Internet Explorer and Edge 

Open the browser > select Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced. Then you can choose your settings. 

For more information visit Microsoft Support. 

Mozilla Firefox 

Open Firefox > select Tools > Options > Privacy >Cookies. You can then choose your settings. 

For more information visit Mozilla support.