Privacy policy
This policy applies to information that the companies in the World First group may collect about visitors to our website, companies and individuals who register for our services and continue to make use of our services and any other person who corresponds with us over the phone or in writing.
Our aim is to give you reassurance that any personal information will be used fairly and only for the purposes for which it was collected.
Please review this Privacy Policy prior to registering an account and providing us with your personal information. Client confidentiality is our main concern and through good practices we strive to ensure that:
- only information which is necessary for adherence to the regulations and/or improvement of our service is collected;
- personal information is collected fairly; and
- personal information is stored securely.
If you have any further questions about data protection with Worldfirst please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your dedicated dealer and we will do our level best to alleviate any of your concerns.
Information you provide to us
To open an account or use WorldFirst services, you will be asked to provide identifying information about yourself (e.g. name, address, and email address), your company and documents to verify the information provided.
In order to make payments, you will be asked to provide the information required to facilitate the payment – e.g. beneficiary information, bank account details and source of funds.
Through the course of our business relationship, we may ask for additional evidence in order for us to comply with our legal obligations – e.g. anti-money laundering regulations. These can include, but are not limited to, documents required to verify any information provided or evidence of source of funds.
Information we collect when you use our website or app
Our website uses cookies to provide you with a better experience on our website, for fraud prevention and to provide internet based advertisements. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our full Cookie policy.
The WorldFirst user community participants will have their sessions recorded to allow us to capture the feedback to improve our services and help with the development of new products. This will always be based on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
For the detection and prevention of fraud and cyber-crime, we will collect information, including session, device and IP address to help ascertain the legitimacy of the account login.
Public information
For non-registered users, we may contact you using publically available information or information from third parties, which you have consented to being shared, to let you know about products that could be relevant for your business.
Transactional information
Once your account is fully set up and you begin to transact with us we will collect, process and store your WorldFirst financial and transactional information. This information includes the amount, currency, type of transaction, source of funds, exchange rate, recipient name and bank details.
Information about you that we receive from third parties
To protect ourselves and our customers against fraud, we verify the information you provide with anti-fraud agencies and electronic identity verification services. In the course of verification, we receive and process information about you from such services.
Your communications with us
All calls are recorded and correspondence retained for the purposes of quality control and training, as evidence of transactions and to fulfil regulation requirements. Any information you disclose to us will be held on these recordings.
Individuals who are not registered users of WorldFirst
Connected parties
WorldFirst will collect information about connected parties to a WorldFirst client during the course of the business relationship from the client to comply with our legal obligations - e.g. directors or shareholders of a company.
Beneficiaries
WorldFirst will collect information required to be able to send a payment to an individual, who may not be a WorldFirst client. This will include name and bank account details that are required by regulations to process the payment.
We use your personal information to allow us to process your registration, process any operations you may book through us and to maintain the accuracy of information on your account.
Registration and administration
We use your information to enable you to register with us. Once you have an account with us we will use your details to contact you and to reply to any queries or requests. We may use your information in the administration of your account, which includes us contacting you in order to update your account details (this assists us with keeping our records as up to date as possible) or in order to notify you of changes or improvements to our products or services that may affect our service to you.
Our products and services
We use your information in order to supply our products and services to you and to meet our contractual obligations to you. Additionally we may need to notify you of any changes relating to our products and services.
Prevention and detection of crime
WorldFirst is subject to strict anti-money laundering regulations which requires us to undertake due diligence on our customers. This may include the use of electronic verification tools. Where electronic verification is not possible we will require copies of identification documents and proof of address.
We may need to pass your information on to Governmental departments, regulatory bodies, the police/law enforcement agencies or to a court of law. This would be done, for example, to assist in the prevention of a crime (money laundering/fraud), to meet legal requirements or for other lawful purposes.
Marketing
We may use your information to keep you up to date concerning our products and services.
Client surveys help us to improve our services. We may send you emails inviting you to participate in surveys or asking for feedback on our services. The information may be shared with affiliated third parties in aggregate form only.
We may market our services to you through social media platforms using information you provide to us when you interact on our website or sign up for our services. We may pass this information onto third parties, such as Facebook, for this purpose. Please contact us if you do not want to receive these sorts of adverts by emailing marketing@worldfirst.com.
In case you joined our User Panel and aren't a client, you'll only receive communication regarding the Panel and will always have the option to unsubscribe.
Monitoring
We record all our telephone calls for security and training purposes.
We have physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that protect your information. We store all data electronically. Data is stored on servers located in the UK and which are protected by actively maintained firewalls. We make use of up-to-date anti-virus software and the servers have restricted physical access.
If you provide paper based documentation we may retain the paper documents in addition to saving copies in an electronic format.
Transmission of data on the internet can never be completely secure. We do not and cannot guarantee security of information collected or transmitted electronically however, we take reasonable care to safeguard your personal information.
World First Group Companies
We may share your information with other companies in the World First group in order to provide you with access to our services. While we have companies based in different jurisdictions we ensure that data protection requirements are consistent across companies in the group.
Regulators
We may need to share your information with regulators or with law enforcement agencies
Banks
We may need to share your information with third parties in order to process your transactions e.g. our banking counterparties.
Additionally owing to the nature of our business we may need to share your information with people or organisations outside your country of residency such as intermediary or beneficiary banks e.g. you request us to make a USD payment to China - Hong Kong the funds would be cleared through an intermediary bank in the US before reaching China - Hong Kong. We are required to include certain information on the payment which may include your name and address.
Other parties
We may share your information with anyone that you have given us permission to, any person acting on your behalf or with a co-branded or dual-branded WorldFirst partner who may have introduced you to us.
We may share your information with trusted companies providing services to us under confidentiality agreements or to companies that assist us in providing our services to you e.g. card transaction processing. These companies do not have any rights to share your information with other third parties (unless required by law) or to market other services to you.
We do not sell any personal data that we hold about you.
You have the right to request details of the information we hold about you, a description of that data, the purposes for which it is being used and any parties with which we share your information.
We may charge you an administration fee for providing this information. Your request should be made in writing to the Data Protection Officer at legal.desk@worldfirst.com for further information.
WorldFirst will only retain your information for as long as is necessary but usually no more than 6 years after the end of the business relationship.
We may amend this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes to the way we use your personal information we will notify you by posting a prominent notice on our website.