Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting your privacy and keeping your personal information secure.

This policy does not extend to external websites accessed from this site – including those of other affiliates of the Skipton Building Society or any of its subsidiaries. Please read the privacy policy and Terms and Conditions of any other sites separately.

The Data Protection (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2017 gives individuals certain rights over their personal data and defines the rules for how a data controller, such as Skipton International, are allowed to process personal information. It also states that those who record and process personal information must be open and honest in how that information is used.

Lawfulness of Data Processing

The Data Protection Law only allows us to use (or process) your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so. We must have one or more of the following reasons:

  • in order to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, or if it is a legal obligation, or if you consent to it, or
  • if it is in our legitimate interest to do so

A legitimate interest means that we have a business reason for using your information that does not treat you unfairly or have a negative impact upon you. If we ever do rely on our legitimate interest to process your personal information we will always advise you of what we are doing.

Collecting Personal Information

The information that we collect about you may come from any of these sources:

Data provided by you:

  • Application forms and related documents that you provide
  • Emails and letters
  • Telephone calls
  • Access of our website
  • Through using our services

Data from third parties:

  • Publicly available, open source information (e.g. Companies House)
  • Government and Law Enforcement agencies
  • Credit reference agencies (where applicable)
  • Fraud Prevention agencies
  • Insurers
  • Companies that introduce you to us as a customer

We will use the information that we collect to provide you with any products or services that you have requested.

Our Service Providers

We may share personal information with other affiliates of the Skipton Building Society Group and these other organisations:

  • Regulators and other Government authorities
  • Fraud prevention agencies
  • Credit Reference agencies (if applicable)
  • Organisations that introduce you to us
  • Guernsey Banking Deposit Compensation Scheme
  • Third party review sites
  • Solicitors/Conveyancers
  • Surveyors
  • Brokers
  • Auditors
  • Technology Service Providers
  • Direct Debit scheme
  • If you have a mortgage with us we may share information with other lenders who also hold a charge on the property
  • Parties that you request we share information with

Personal Data Rights

Under the Data Protection (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2017 by which Skipton International abides you, as a Data Subject, have many specific rights over the use of your personal data.

Generally, we have 30 days to respond to any request you make in regard to your personal data rights.

Below are your rights relevant to the personal data that we hold:

  • Right of Access & Data Portability – On request we will provide the relevant personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, suitable for transmission to another Data Controller.
  • Right to Rectification – If you do not believe that the personal data Skipton International holds on you is correct just let us know and, once confirmed, we will update our records with the correct information. We will confirm and notify you once these changes have been made.
  • Right to Erasure/Right to be Forgotten – After your accounts are closed and/or your mortgage is redeemed we will retain your personal information for 7 years (Savings customers)/15 years (Mortgage customers)  for one of the following reasons:
    • In order to show that we have treated you fairly.
    • In order to respond to any questions or complaints.
    • In order to maintain records to comply with rules applicable to us.

After this time we will erase your personal data from our core banking systems. However, data will remain on our secure, restricted access back-ups for up to 7 years due to the technical difficulties of deletion from these systems and the other associated risks involved with this process. We have deemed this to be within our legitimate interests.

  • Right to Restriction of Processing – If you wish for us to stop processing your personal data you must close all of your accounts with us. This right does not apply to the storage of personal data.
  • Right to Object – We may occasionally contact you via post, email or telephone with details of Skipton products including new interest rate options. We believe it is within our legitimate interests to do so and that it is in your interests to be made aware of new products that could be of benefit to you. However, you can request that you are not contacted for this purpose on your initial application form and at any other time, via email to ‘optout@skiptoninternational.com’ or by contacting our friendly Customer Services team on (+)44 1481 730730. You can also make this request in writing to the Data Protection Officer at the address below.

Data Subject Access Request

The Law allows you to find out what information we hold about you. This is known as a "Data Subject Access Request." If you wish to know what information we hold about you, please write to the Data Protection Officer:

Data Protection Officer

Skipton International Limited

P.O. Box 509

Tudor House

The Bordage

St Peter Port GY1 6DS

Or email ‘dsars@skiptoninternational.com’ with your request.

We have 30 days to respond to a Data Subject Access Request.

Verifying Customer Information

To verify customer identity and ongoing suitability we may conduct open-source searches to verify the information provided by customers. We also use a third-party provider ID-Pal to ensure the accuracy of user-provided information. You can find their privacy notice here.

Feefo Review Site

We may share customer personal details (name, email address and whether you are a mortgage or savings customer) with a third party review site in order to help us improve the service we provide to our customers. This site may contact you to request that you review your experience with Skipton International. You can view their Privacy Policy here: Feefo Privacy Policy You are under no obligation to complete a review if requested to do so.

Mortgage Customers

If you are a Skipton International Mortgage customer please refer to the Mortgage Application form for other specific Data Protection information related to your personal data.                      

The Office of The Data Protection Authority

If you feel that we have not handled your personal data correctly you have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. Details of how to make a compliant can be found here. You also have the right to appeal against any decisions made by the Data Protection Commission in regards to your complaint.

We provide ongoing training for our employees and emphasise the need to keep data confidential.

Telephone Calls and CCTV

Your telephone conversations with Skipton International may be recorded. This is to help Skipton International in its continuous attempts to improve customer service and to offer additional security to all parties. Calls and electronic communications may also be monitored for reasons of staff training.

24 hrs CCTV is in operation across our offices for the prevention and detection of crime. Recordings will be retained for 60 days.

Website

The principle purpose of collecting personal data from you via this website is to assist in the efficient running of your accounts or to provide information or services specifically requested by you. When you complete our online enquiry forms, we ask for your contact details and other selected information, so that we can deal with your request as efficiently and effectively as possible. Our Cookie Policy can be found here.

Our website also uses Google reCAPTCHA to help protect us from spam. CAPTCHA is a Turing test to tell human and bots apart. It is easy for humans to solve, but hard for “bots” and other malicious software to figure out. The reCAPTCHA privacy policy can be found here: https://policies.google.com/privacy/update?hl=en&safe=strict

Changes to this Notice

This notice was last reviewed and updated in May 2024.