To preserve the confidentiality of all information you provide to us, we have adopted the following privacy principles:

1. We only collect information that we believe to be relevant and required to understand your financial needs and to conduct our business.
   
   
2. We use your information to provide you with better customer services and products.
   
   
3. We may pass your information to other HSBC Group companies or agents, as permitted by law.
   
   
4. We will not disclose your information to any external organisation unless we have your consent or are required by law or have previously informed you.
   
   
5. We may be required from time to time to disclose your information to Governmental or judicial bodies or agencies or our regulators, but we will only do so under proper authority.
   
   
6. We aim to keep your information up-to-date.
   
   
7. We maintain strict security systems designed to prevent unauthorised access to your information by anyone, including our staff.
   
   
8. All Group companies, all our staff and all third parties with permitted access to your information are specifically required to observe our confidentiality obligations.

By maintaining our commitment to these principles, we at HSBC will ensure that we respect the inherent trust that you place in us.

Data Security

Security is our top priority. HSBC will strive at all times to ensure that your personal data will be protected against unauthorised or accidental access, processing or erasure. We maintain this commitment to data security by implementing appropriate physical, electronic and managerial measures to safeguard and secure your personal data.

Our web servers are protected behind firewalls and our systems are monitored to prevent any unauthorised access.

All practical steps will be taken to ensure that personal data will not be kept longer than necessary and that HSBC will comply with all statutory and regulatory requirements concerning the retention of personal information.

Security Assurance

Both you and HSBC play an important role in protecting against online fraud. You should be careful that your bank account details including your User ID and/or Password are not compromised by ensuring that you do not knowingly or accidentally share, provide or facilitate unauthorised use of it. Do not share your User ID and/or Password or allow access or use of it by others. If you think your User ID and/or Password has been disclosed to a third party, is lost or stolen and unauthorised transactions may have been conducted, please inform us immediately. We endeavor to put in place high standards of security to protect your interests.

Collection of Personal Information

Our visit to this site may be recorded for analysis on the number of visitors to the site and general usage patterns. Some of this information will be gathered through the use of 'cookies'. Cookies are small bits of information that are automatically stored on a person's web browser in their computer that can be retrieved by this site. Should you wish to disable these cookies you may do so by changing the setting on your browser. However, you may be unable to enter certain parts of our website.

Occasionally we may collect personal information from visitors to this site. Such information is only collected from individuals who voluntarily provide us with their personal information. We may use this information to advise them of products, services and other marketing materials which we think may be of interest to them. We may also invite visitors to this site to participate in market research and surveys and other similar activities.

If we do ask you to provide personal information, we will always specify the purpose for which such personal information is collected and ensure that it is only used for the purpose specified at the time of collection.