STATEMENT OF PRIVACY POLICY - APRIL 2003

OUR COMMITMENT

We handle personal information provided by and about people every day. By personal information we mean information or an opinion about a person whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained. We understand that your privacy is very important to you as it is to us too.

We are bound by, and committed to supporting, the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) set out in the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000. The information set out below is largely a summary of our obligations under the NPPs. Our aim is to both support, and ensure that we comply with, the NPPs that form the basis of laws introduced to strengthen privacy protection for the general public.

We believe that this Statement will address any potential concerns you may have about how personal information you provide to us is collected, held, used, corrected, disclosed and transferred. You may request further information from us about the way we manage the personal information we hold.

COLLECTION

In the course of our activities we collect and hold personal information such as details of our investors and borrowers. The main reason we collect that personal information is to:

assess the suitability of applicants for a loan,
maintain our register of investors,
update our records and;
distribute information and details of events of interest.

We will only collect personal information from you by lawful and fair means, without being unreasonably intrusive, such as when you complete an application form or questionnaire. Furthermore, we will only collect personal information from you that is necessary for one or more of our functions and activities. At or before the time we collect personal information from you we will take reasonable steps to inform you about why we are collecting that personal information, who else we might disclose that personal information to and what will happen if you do not provide personal information to us. Where reasonable and practicable, we will only collect personal information about you from you.

Wherever it is lawful and practicable, we will give you the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when entering into transactions with us. However, failure to provide full and complete information may mean that we are unable to provide services to you fully and properly. Once we do hold personal information we will take reasonable steps to keep it accurate, complete and up-to-date.

USE AND DISCLOSURE

We will only use your personal information for the main purpose we told you it was needed for, except where you consent to us using that personal information for another purpose, where the other purpose is related to the main purpose and you would reasonably expect us to use the personal information for that other purpose, or where it is permitted or required by law, or we reasonably believe it is necessary on health or public safety grounds to use the personal information for another purpose.

In order to fulfil the purposes set out above we may provide access to your personal information to third parties with whom we have a business relationship, for example those who maintain and update our database, who assist with mail-outs and various external service providers including our Auditors and Custodian. You accept that not all recipients of your information may have privacy policies equivalent to ours and you consent to the disclosure of your personal information for those purposes.

In relation to direct marketing, where possible we will seek your consent before we use your personal information for this purpose. You may tell us at any time you do not wish to receive any further direct marketing materials and if you do, we will stop sending you such materials.

In the event that we propose to sell our business we may disclose your personal information to potential purchasers for the purpose of them conducting due diligence investigations. Any such disclosure will be made in confidence and it will be a condition of that disclosure that no personal information will be used or disclosed by them. In the event that a sale of our business is effected, we may transfer your personal information to the purchaser of the business. As our client you will naturally be advised of any such transfer.

ACCESS AND CORRECTION

If you ask, we will tell you what personal information we hold about you, and what we do with it. We will facilitate access to you by allowing an inspection of your personal information in person, or by providing copies or a summary of relevant documents, depending on what is appropriate in the circumstances. If you can show us that the personal information is inaccurate, we will take reasonable steps to correct it. Note that we need not provide access to personal information in several types of situation, for example where a request is frivolous, or where to provide access would pose a threat to health or public safety, unreasonably interfere with another person's privacy, or be a breach of the law. If we refuse access we will advise you of our reasons for doing so.

SECURITY

We will protect personal information from misuse and loss, and destroy or permanently de-identify personal information we no longer need.

IDENTIFIERS

We will not adopt as our own any identifiers that you may provide to us such as TFN's, Medicare numbers etc.

SENDING DATA OVERSEAS AND THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

We will not send any personal information about you overseas unless you consent to this, or we reasonably believe that the other country has privacy laws substantially similar to our own, or we provide the information in other circumstances giving like protection.

COMPLAINTS RESOLUTION

We are committed to providing members, and other parties whose personal information we hold, a fair and responsible system for the handling of their complaints. If at any time you have any complaints in relation to privacy, please contact our Complaints Handling Officer. We will seek to address any concerns that you have through our complaints handling processes, but if you wish to take matters further you may refer your concerns to the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner.

CONTACT US

If you would like further information about this Statement , or our privacy policy in general please contact our Compliance Officer on 1800 635 527.

ADDITIONAL PRIVACY INFORMATION

Further information on privacy in Australia may be obtained by visiting the web site of the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.gov.au

INVESTOR CONCERNS

We aim to provide our investors with the highest possible level of service, however we recognise that sometimes things may go wrong. We have an internal complaints handling procedure in place to ensure that the concerns of our investors can be investigated and resolved quickly, fairly and inexpensively. Should you have a complaint, please put it in writing and address it to:

The Complaints Handling Officer,
Equititrust Limited,
PO Box 8111
Gold Coast MC
Bundall QLD 9726

If for any reason you are not satisfied with our final answer to your formal complaint, you can take matters further and ask an independent complaints scheme to review your complaint.

We are a member of the Financial Industry Complaints Service (FICS). FICS provides free advice and assistance to consumers to help them resolve complaints relating to members of the financial services industry. Upon receipt of a complaint, FICS will contact both parties and attempt to resolve the matter by conciliation of the parties. Each complaint is taken on its merits and dealt with in a fair and unbiased manner. The contact details for FICS are:

Financial Industry Complaints Service
PO Box 579
Collins Street West
MELBOURNE VIC 8007
Telephone: 1300 780 808 (toll free)
Fax: 03 9621 2291
Email: fics@fics.asn.au
Website: www.fics.asn.au