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Privacy Statement

Privacy and security information for the HSBC website

HSBC Privacy Policy

Our business has been built on trust between our customers and ourselves. To preserve the confidentiality of all information you provide to us, we, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, India ("HSBC"), maintain the following privacy principles:

  1. We only collect personal information that we believe to be relevant and required to understand your financial needs and to conduct our business.
  2. We use your personal information to provide you with better customer services and products and to ensure that you receive details of content and products that are relevant to you or that you may be interested in.
  3. We may pass your personal information to other HSBC Group companies or any agent or third party service provider unless prohibited by laws and regulations. We will not disclose your personal information to any external organisation unless we have your consent or are required by laws and regulations or have previously informed you.
  4. We may be required from time to time to disclose your personal information to Governmental or judicial bodies or agencies or our regulators, but we will only do so under proper authority.
  5. We aim to keep your personal information on our records accurate and up-to-date therefore you are required to update your personal information from time to time.
  6. We maintain strict security systems designed to prevent unauthorised access to your personal information by anyone, including our staff.
  7. HSBC Group companies, our staff and any agent or third party service provider with access to your information are required to observe our confidentiality obligations except where your information is transferred in accordance with law, order of a court of competent jurisdiction, other governmental or judicial authority’s requirement.

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

Your privacy matters to us

This section provides specific details of how we treat any personal information you might wish to provide us when you visit this site (i.e. www.hsbc.co.in ).

Data Security

Security is our top priority. HSBC will strive at all times to ensure that your personal information 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 information.

The secure area of our website supports the use of Secure Socket Layer(SSL)protocol and 128-encryption technology - an industry standard for encryption over the Internet to protect data. When you provide sensitive information such as credit card details, it will be automatically converted into codes before being securely dispatched over the Internet.

Our web servers are protected behind "firewalls" and our systems are monitored to prevent any unauthorised access. We will not send personal information to you by ordinary email. As the security of ordinary email cannot be guaranteed, you should only send email to us using the secure email facility on our website. All practical steps will be taken to ensure that personal information will not be kept longer than necessary and that HSBC will comply with all legal, statutory and regulatory requirements concerning the retention of personally identifiable 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(s) and/or Passwords/personal identification numbers (PIN) are not compromised by ensuring that you do not knowingly or accidentally share, provide or facilitate unauthorised use of it. Please do not share your User ID and/or password or allow access or use of it by others. We endeavor to put in place high standards of security to protect your interests.

You should safeguard your unique User ID(s) and Passwords/PINs by keeping it secret and confidential. Kindly never write them down or share these details with anyone. HSBC will never ask you for your Passwords/PINs, in order to ensure that you are the only person who knows this information. When choosing your unique User ID and Password for the first time, do not create it using easily identifiable information such as your birthday, telephone number or a recognisable part of your name. If you think your User ID and/or Passwords/PINs have been disclosed to third party is lost or stolen and unauthorised transactions may have been conducted, you are responsible to inform us immediately.

Cookies

We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website. Cookies allow you to do many things such as log on to Internet Banking, have us 'remember' your log-in preferences and apply for products and services online. Cookies are small text files that are sent to and stored on your computer, smartphone or other device for accessing the internet, whenever you visit a website. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user's device.

At HSBC, we use cookies for a variety of reasons, such as to determine preferences, let users navigate between pages efficiently, verify the user and carry out other essential security checks. We use cookies to safeguard your privacy when you're browsing our website.

Cookies can also allow us to tailor the content of our website to suit your interests. For example, instead of displaying promotional messages about products you already have, they let us show you other services you may be interested in.

Finally, we use ‘analytics’ cookies to help us make our website better for those who visit it regularly. They help us work out what users like and don't like and how we can improve things for you.

When we include links to other websites, please bear in mind the other websites may have their own privacy and cookie policies that will govern the use of any information you submit. We recommend you read their policies as HSBC is not responsible or liable for their privacy practices.

Our cookies do not store personal information such as your name, address, telephone or email, however our tailored content cookies may monitor how you use our website including details of pages viewed, language preferences, browser type and previous web browsing activity  so that we can deliver you more suitable content. You might also see HSBC branded ads when browsing other non-HSBC websites. Some of these will be general campaign-related ads but others will be tailored to your likely interests based on your previous web browsing activity. This type of advertising uses cookies from third parties that are trusted suppliers to HSBC. For this purpose we may transfer your cookie information with third parties with whom HSBC contracts with for campaign and promotional purposes.

We do use a small number of cookies that store encrypted versions of information where you have asked us to, such as the ‘Remember me’ function that allows us to remember your Internet Banking username for subsequent visits. However, this is encrypted so that only HSBC can read this information.

We never use the data gathered through cookies to contact you via post, email or phone. We may use cookies to show you subtly tailored content on our site or other websites of things we think you might be interested in, but only in relation to HSBC products and services. You will never see advertising on our website from anyone other than HSBC group companies on the products offered by HSBC including in its capacity as an agent.

If you wish to opt out of all cookies for this website and any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. Your browser's 'help' function will tell you how to do this.

However, please remember that cookies are often used to enable and improve certain functions on our website. If you choose to switch certain cookies off, it is likely to affect how our website works. For example, if your browser is set to disable 'session' cookies, although you will still be able to view our public website, you won't be able to log on to internet banking.

For more information about how to disable cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org

If you accept cookies, you will be acknowledging that your information is being collected, stored, accessed and used as outlined above.

Marketing Promotions: Occasionally we may collect personal information from visitors to this site and those individuals that participate in a contest or promotion (online or over the telephone, or at one of our branches). 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.

Personal Information

If we do ask you to provide personal information, we will specify the purpose for which such personal information is collected and it is used for the purpose specified at the time of collection. You are free to withhold your consent for the collection of any personal information or to withdraw any prior consent that you may have provided for collection of personal information, at any time, by refusing to submit such personal information and approaching us in writing.  However, please remember that once consent is withdrawn we may not be able to provide you with any services which depend on such personal information through our website.

Our Information Collection Statement

The Statement is intended to notify you why personal information is collected, how it will be used and to whom data access requests are to be addressed.

a. Why we collect your personal information - we collect your personal information to carry out and           administer our services to you and in an effort to improve your customer experience. Without such data,     HSBC may be unable to open or continue accounts or establish or continue banking facilities or provide     banking services.

b. Personal Information is also collected from customers in the ordinary course of business to continue the     banking relationship, for example, when customers write cheques or deposit money.

c. How your personal information may be used - Personal Information relating to a customer may be used to:

                     i.    Facilitate the daily operation of the services and credit facilities provided to customers;

                    ii.   conduct credit checks;

                    iii.   assist other financial institutions to conduct credit checks and collect debts;

                    iv.   ensure ongoing credit worthiness of customers;

                    v.   design financial services or related products for customers' use;

                    vi.   market financial services or related products;

                    vii.  determine the amount of indebtedness owed to or by customers;

                    viii.  collect amounts outstanding from customers and those providing security for customers'                                  obligations;

                     ix.   meet the disclosure requirements of any law binding on HSBC or any of its branches;

                     x.   enable an actual or proposed assignee of HSBC, or participant or sub-participant of HSBC's                              rights in respect of the customer to evaluate the transaction intended to be the subject of the                            assignment, participation or sub-participation; to meet legal, regulatory or HSBC’s internal                                policy requirement; and to fulfill any other purposes relating thereto.

d. Disclosure of your personal information held by HSBC relating to a customer will be kept confidential, but,       HSBC may provide such information to the following parties for the purposes set out in paragraph (c):

                     i.  any agent or third party service provider who provides administrative, telecommunications,                              computer, payment or securities clearing or other services to HSBC in connection with the                                operation of its business;

                     ii.  any other person under a duty of confidentiality to HSBC including a Group company of                                    HSBC which has undertaken to keep such information confidential;

                     iii. the drawee bank providing a copy of a paid cheque (which may contain information about                                 the payee) to the drawer;

                     iv. credit reference agencies, and, in the event of default, to debt collection agencies;

                      v. any person to whom HSBC is under an obligation to make disclosure under the                                                 requirements of any law binding on HSBC or any of its branches; and

                      vi. any actual or proposed assignee of HSBC or participant or sub-participant or transferee                                      of HSBC's rights in respect of the customer

e. HSBC retains the right to charge a reasonable fee for the processing of any data access request .for     requests which are not specified as a part of our account charges and as may be permitted under     applicable law. HSBC however, will not charge for any data access request which are required for your     regular account operations

f. We use our own Group entities and agents or third party service providers to process some of the               requirement to service your request and you may approach us in writing in case you wish to obtain a copy     of such personal information to review and make corrections to any personal information that has been     provided.  HSBC and its Group entities shall not be responsible for the accuracy of any information that you     provide.

g. Any grievances relating to use or handling of your sensitive personal data or other information may be     brought to our notice by writing to us through the Grievance Redressal Link on our website or submitting a     request at any of our branches in India.  You may also contact our Regional Nodal Officers / Chief Nodal     Officer in case of any other issues. You may obtain the details of the Nodal Officers by visiting the     grievance redressal page on our website.

Mobile App Privacy Notice

We, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, India ("HSBC") collects, uses and shares information about you so that it can provide you with a bank account and related services. This App Privacy Policy explains how HSBC collects, uses and shares your information when you use this app, including information about the device that the app is installed on e.g. your mobile phone or tablet. 

[This app is provided by HSBC Global Services (UK) Limited for and on behalf of HSBC, and all products and services accessed via this app are provided by HSBC.]

We use a range of measures to keep your information safe and secure which may include encryption and other forms of security. We require our staff and any third parties who carry out any work on our behalf to comply with appropriate compliance standards including obligations to protect any information and applying appropriate measures for the use and transfer of information.

We'll keep your information in line with our data retention policy. This allows us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or use it where we need to for our legitimate purposes such as managing your account and dealing with any disputes or concerns that may arise. We may need to keep your information for longer where we need the information to comply with regulatory or legal requirements, help detect or prevent fraud and financial crime, answer requests from regulators etc.

This section explains what information HSBC collects from your device, how it uses it, and whether it shares it. In some cases, e.g. when accessing the contacts stored on your device, or photos that you take with your device, HSBC will first ask your permission. HSBC may share your information with other HSBC group companies and any sub-contractors, agents or service providers who work for us or other HSBC group companies (including their employees, sub-contractors, service providers, directors and officers) to provide you with products or services that you ask for (such as bank accounts and payments) and as explained in our main privacy notice - this type of data sharing is not included here.

Permissions for devices

  • Location: Your approximate location can be used to prevent fraud when you're using the HSBC app.
  • Device information and internet access: This allows us check if you have a working internet connection.
  • Biometric information: This allows you to use biometrics authentication (like fingerprints or facial recognition) to logon to our app. If you do so, we rely on your device's technology to authenticate you and we do not collect or store your underlying biometric data.
  • Device camera and photo library: This allows you to take a photo or video and immediately share it with us or access the content from the photo library in order to allow us to provide you with a bank account or related services. 
  • Non-exhaustive examples of when we may ask you to do this include to scan a QR code to make a payment.
  • Push messages: This allows you to receive instant notifications from our app about activity on your account or to inform that you've received a chat message from HSBC.

Permission specific to iOS devices

  • App tracking transparency: This allows you to grant us the permission to track your activities across other companies' apps and websites (versions iOS 14.0 and above only).

Permission specific to Android devices

  • External storage device (for example memory card): This allows the app save files onto your device's external storage. This allows you to store and send documents, for example loan agreements, e-statements. 
  • Application permission: This allows Google Play Store to record where you downloaded the HSBC app from.

Tools

Our app includes tools that collect information about your device and the way you use it online to:

  • allow you to log on to our app,
  • provide our app's core services and features, and measure their performance,
  • protect the security of our app, for example, to make sure the app is only accessed by genuine users,
  • help us to identify suspicious behaviour on our app so we can protect both you and us from fraud,
  • ensure our app's optional features and services work, which may include both allowing us to customise what you see on our app and where based on what we know about you, and also helping to prevent fraud and maintain security on other apps, websites or services that you haven't asked to use when you're on our app,
  • enable us to understand how you use our app, so that we can improve how our app works, e.g. by using analytics providers to identify and count uses of our app and to see which pages people go to and what they do there, and
  • understand what you're interested in on our app and on social media, and potentially identify what directed you to our app, so that so we or our partners can personalise our marketing to you.

Need Help?

Visit our contact page to speak to us over the phone, email or online enquiry

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