bob Finance

Data privacy statement

1. Data Controller and Data Protection Advisor

In this Privacy Statement, you will find out how your personal data is processed in connection with services concerning:
a) bob credit personal loans
b) bob pay instalment payment plan

"We/us" or "bob Finance" refers to bob Finance, a branch of Valora Schweiz AG. The registered office of Valora Schweiz AG is at Hofackerstrasse 40, 4132 Muttenz, Switzerland. We are therefore responsible for the lawful processing of your personal data, particularly the acquisition, use, storage and disclosure thereof.

Your trust is important to us. That is why we take the topic of data protection seriously and pay attention to your security in that respect. We undertake to deal responsibly with your personal data. It therefore goes without saying that we comply with the statutory requirements of the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), the Data Protection Ordinance (DPO), the Telecommunications Act (TCA) and other provisions of Swiss law protecting your personal data.

Our company’s Data Protection Advisor can be reached by e-mail at dataprivacy@valora.com or alternatively by post at the above-indicated address of bob Finance.

2. Categories of data and purposes of processing

2.1. Collection and processing of your personal data in the context of our services

If you send us a request to enter into a loan agreement pursuant to our bob credit personal loan of (with or without credit insurance), we may, at our sole discretion, collect personal data about you and possibly about a second member of your household indicated by you. Such data may include:

  • Basic personal data (in particular title, last name, first name, gender, date of birth, language of correspondence, nationality, residence permit);
  • contact data (particularly home address, e-mail address, home phone and mobile phone numbers);
  • identification documents (particularly copies of ID and passport, residence permit documents, driver's license);
  • personal status information (especially marital status, number of children, divorce decrees, custody agreements, information about deputyship);
  • salary and income information (especially employer information, monthly income, pay statements, information about public assistance benefits and support obligations, wage attachments);
  • cost-of-living data (especially housing costs, lease, health insurance costs and policies, childcare costs, education costs);
  • creditworthiness and credit information (particularly scores from credit reference agencies such as CRIF AG, 8050 Zurich, data from the Central Office for Credit Information (ZEK) and the Consumer Credit Information Office (IKO), as well as information from debt collection offices);
  • banking data (particularly account statements and information, photocopies of debit or credit cards);
  • proposal and contract information (particularly contract number and customer number, terms and conditions offered, offers and contract documents as well as transaction information regarding any loan repayments you have made);
  • audio recordings and photos from online identity checks by third-party providers.

Such personal data is strictly necessary for us in order to communicate with you by telephone, SMS, WhatsApp, e-mail or post, to create your customer account, to enter into and fulfil the financing agreement with you and to send you invoices and any reminders.

Please note that we have no control over the processing of your personal data by any loan broker you may have commissioned and that the processing of your personal data by any such loan broker is governed by its own privacy policy.

If you would like to enter into a financing agreement with one of our business partners as part of our bob pay instalment payment plan offer for a product purchase, certain personal data may be collected from you on a discretionary basis, by us and/or by our business partner in its role as vendor. Such data may include:

  • Basic personal data (in particular title, last name, first name, gender, date of birth, language of correspondence, nationality, residence permit);
  • contact data (particularly home address, e-mail address, home phone and mobile phone numbers);
  • shopping cart information (product that you purchased);
  • creditworthiness and credit information (particularly scores from credit reference agencies such as CRIF AG, 8050 Zurich, data from the Central Office for Credit Information (ZEK), as well as information from debt collection offices);
  • proposal and contract information (particularly contract number and customer number, the contract documents as well as transaction information regarding any instalment payments you have made);
  • identification documents (particularly copies of ID and passport, residence permit documents, driver's license);
  • photos (“selfies”) from online identity checks by third-party providers.

Such personal data is strictly necessary for us in order to communicate with you by telephone, SMS, WhatsApp, e-mail or post, to create your customer account, to enter into and fulfil the financing agreement with you and to send you invoices and any reminders.

Please note that we have no control over the processing of your personal data by our business partner and/or your vendor, and that the processing of your personal data by the vendor is governed by its own privacy policy.

2.2. Acquisition and processing of your personal data for marketing and reporting purposes

  • Visit to our websites: When you visit our website, our web servers automatically record the details of your visit, such as your IP address, the websites accessed, the type of browser software used, and certain information regarding your website usage, including the date and duration of your visit, as well as information about which products you viewed on our website and which products you placed in your shopping cart. We use tracking technologies, cookies and third-party analysis services to collect protocol and analysis data. You can read more about this in our Cookie Notice.
  • Improving our products and services: Your basic personal data, contact data, contract information and transaction data, as well as other information that you provide to us is used by us for analytical purposes. Such information helps us to improve, optimize and further develop our products and services. In so doing, our goal is to use primary, pseudonymized data for analytical purposes.
  • Direct advertising: Subject to your consent, we will use your contact data (name, e-mail-address, home address), certain demographic data (age, gender, language) and information about your agreements and product use in order to send you attractive offers and relevant information about our products and/or the products of our business partners. We may also use the collected data in order to show you personalized online ads on third-party websites.
  • Market research: We occasionally ask people who use our products and services to participate in surveys. In such cases, you will be able to look up in the available made available how bob Finance collects and processes your personal data.

2.3. Acquisition and processing of your personal data in the case of enquiries for the purpose of business development and other legitimate interests

  • Responding to enquiries and resolving technical problems: Whenever you contact us with questions or complaints or write to us as a prospective customer using the online form, then we will collect and process your personal information, contact data and the content of your customer enquiry so as to be able to meet your needs and our obligations as best as possible.
    In certain cases, the personal data collected about you may also be used to improve our business processes and to resolve technical problems and/or to further develop our technical systems.
  • Contract processing with our business partners: We collect personal data from the employees of our business partners (loan brokers and merchants/vendors) to perform the contract, onboard our business partners, provide and use our partner portal, maintain and develop our business relationship, respond to enquiries and manage risks. Such information particularly includes basic personal data of contact persons (last name, first name), business information (company, position, title) and contact data (e-mail-address, postal address, telephone number) and copies of identification documents, proof of address, as well as creditworthiness and credit information.
  • Other legitimate interests of bob Finance: Besides the above-mentioned processing purposes, we may also process your personal data whenever we have a legal obligation or overriding legitimate interest in doing so, e.g. in order to enforce, establish, or defend against administrative or judicial claims, or whenever bob Finance or portions of bob Finance are sold, taken over or split off. As required, we will inform you of such data processing separately.

3. Transfer and disclosure of your personal data

3.1. Transfer to affiliated companies

If necessary for the processing purposes stated above, we may disclose your personal data to our affiliated companies (usually inside, and only exceptionally outside Switzerland; see Section 5).

3.2. Transfer to third parties

  • Credit reference agencies: If you apply for a bob credit personal loan, we will convey your personal data (basic personal data, contact data, identification documents, requested amount and details of the loan) to credit reference agencies (particularly ZEK, IKO and CRIF).
    Using the information reported back to us by the credit reference agencies, we perform a credit check to decide whether we can offer you a personal loan. In the course of that credit check, we will also check your data against our internal customer and contract databases. In addition, we may report any serious payment arrears or abuses to the above-mentioned recipients.
    If you have provided income information about a second member of your household (with his or her consent) in your loan application, we may also convey the information in question to the above-mentioned credit reference agencies in order to obtain information about that person's creditworthiness. When processing the second person’s personal data, we reserve the right to verify the information you provided by directly questioning the person in question.
  • Business partners of bob Finance: Whenever you apply for and take out a bob credit personal loan brokered by one of our business partners, we will share your proposal and contract information, as well as your creditworthiness and loan information with our business partner (loan broker). If we are unable to offer you a bob credit personal loan, we will inform the loan broker of the negative decision. We may also inform the loan broker of the repayment status of your loan agreement.
    When entering into a loan agreement, we also convey the necessary personal data to our refinancing partner. If you fail to meet your payment obligations to bob Finance on time, we may assign the outstanding claim to collection agencies for collection, and forward your personal data. The collection agencies may in turn forward your personal data and contract details to credit reference agencies.
  • Insurer: Whenever you take out insurance on your bob credit personal loans through us, the related data will be exchanged with the insurer for the purpose of preparing and implementing the insurance contract (including for insurance claim settlement) and for the purpose of commission accounting with the insurer.
  • Data processors: In providing our services, we receive support from various providers specializing in technology, cloud, shipping, consulting and marketing services. We have entered into contracts with such service providers (data processors) for the lawful processing of your personal data. Through those contracts, we ensure that our data processors will properly protect your personal data at all times and process it only to the extent authorized by bob Finance.
  • Public bodies: As part of our credit checks, we also obtain information from public bodies to ensure compliance with the statutory requirements for the prevention of overindebtedness. This may include obtaining an extract from the debt collection register at the relevant debt collection office. The data from the debt collection register extract is input directly into our credit check for the purpose of granting a bob credit personal loan. Moreover, we may verify your place of residence with the competent residents' registration office and/or, in case of well-founded suspicions of a deputyship, check for the existence of such a deputyship with the competent adult protection authorities.
  • Employer: Only in case of reasonable doubt regarding the authenticity of submitted wage statements/supporting documents will we verify them with your employer. The verification will be made by calling your specified employer at the specified telephone number. We will check both your specified salary and the status of your employment relationship. We will not give your employer any information about our services or their scope, or any further information about you. The information obtained from the verification will be input directly into our credit check in order to decide whether we can grant you a bob credit personal loan.
  • Credit reference agencies: If you apply for a bob pay instalment payment plan, we will convey your personal data (name, address, date of birth, copy of identification documents, requested amount and details of loan) to credit reference agencies (particularly ZEK, and CRIF).
    Using the information reported back to us by the credit reference agencies, we perform a credit check to decide whether we can offer you an instalment payment plan. In the course of that credit check, we will also check your data against our internal customer and contract databases. In addition, we may report any serious payment arrears or abuses to the above-mentioned agencies.
  • Insurer: Whenever you take out insurance on your bob pay instalment payment plan through us, the related data will be exchanged with the insurer for the purpose of preparing and implementing the insurance contract (including for insurance claim settlement) and for the purpose of commission accounting with the insurer.
  • Business partners of bob Finance: If you apply for and enter into a financing agreement in the context of a bob pay instalment payment plan, we will share your proposal and contract information with your business partner (your vendor). If we are unable to offer you a bob pay instalment payment plan, we will inform the vendor of the negative decision. We may also inform the vendor if you are in arrears on payments.

    When entering into a financing agreement, we also convey the necessary personal data to our refinancing partner. If you fail to meet your payment obligations to bob Finance on time, we may assign the outstanding claim to collection agencies for collection, and forward your personal data. The collection agencies may in turn forward your personal data and contract details to credit reference agencies.
  • Processors: In providing our services, we receive support from various providers specializing in technology, cloud, shipping, consulting and marketing services. We have entered into contracts with such service providers (data processors) for the lawful processing of your personal data. Through those contracts, we ensure that our data processors will properly protect your personal data at all times and process it only to the extent authorized by bob Finance.
  • Public bodies: As part of our credit check, we may verify your place of residence with the competent residents' registration office and/or, in case of well-founded suspicions of a deputyship, check for the existence of such a deputyship with the competent adult protection authorities.

3.3. Disclosure in connection with financial transactions

If we are involved in a merger, joint venture, acquisition or sale of equity or assets, we may share your information with any transaction partner who shall likewise comply with the applicable underlying legal basis, particularly in connection with your data protection rights.

3.4. Disclosure in connection with criminal proceedings

To the extent permitted by law, we may disclose information that is necessary or beneficial to investigate or prevent an actual or suspected criminal offense or other violation of our or a third party's rights.

4. Automated decisions

4.1. Automated credit checks

Based on your personal details and the creditworthiness information about you received from the credit reference agencies queried (see Section 3.3), our systems use algorithms to calculate the risk of default on the requested financing. Our systems will make a fully automated decision as to whether or not we are able to grant you the desired service.

If the outcome of the automated check is negative, you are entitled to contact us in that respect and express your opinion about the decision (see Section 9).

4.2. Supplementary manual verification of further documents

As a supplement to the data recorded in your application form, further information or documents may occasionally be required from you in order to check your financing application, especially when you apply for a bob credit personal loan. In order to make a financing decision and give you a non-binding financing proposal, we are required by law to obtain further documents from you, such as pay statements and a copy of your ID. Such additional documents are always checked manually by our employees.

5. Place of processing and disclosure abroad

Your data will generally be processed only in Switzerland and EU Member States. Exceptionally, in the context of support services, your personal data may be accessed by our service providers in the United Kingdom, USA, India and Ukraine, in isolated cases. Moreover, we are entitled to communicate your personal data to third-party companies to the extent necessary for the purpose of the processing. In that case, we naturally comply with the statutory provisions on the disclosure of personal data to countries outside of Switzerland, where the foreign recipients are bound to data protection to the same extent as we are.

Certain third-party service providers of bob Finance are based in the USA, India or Ukraine. We inform users residing in Switzerland or in an EU Member State that the USA, as well as India or Ukraine, do not have an adequate level of data protection from the perspective of Switzerland and of the European Union. In the case of recipients in one of the above-mentioned countries, we require the recipient to comply with the applicable data protection regulations and, if necessary, obtain further assurances of the protection of your personal data.

6. Own social media-presences

Our website contains links to social media platforms. Behind the buttons, there is merely a link to our presence on those social media platforms. Consequently, no user data will be sent directly from our websites to the relevant social media platform without your intervention.

The social media links point to bob Finance presences on the following social networks:

  • Facebook from Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland,
  • Instagram from Instagram Inc., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA,
  • LinkedIn from LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, and
  • YouTube operated by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

If you open one of those links, a direct connection will be set up between your browser and the server of the relevant social network. That will inform the relevant network that you are visiting our website from your IP address and have clicked on the link. If you click on a link to a network while you are logged into your account at the network in question, the content of our website may be linked with your profile on the network. This means that the social network can associate your visit to our website directly with your user account. If you wish to prevent that, you should first log out of the relevant social network. An association will be established in any case if you log into the relevant network after clicking on the link.

Please note that bob Finance has no control over the processing of your personal data by the above-mentioned social media platforms.

7. Data security

We use suitable and appropriate technical and organizational security measures in order to protect your personal data stored by us against manipulation, whole or partial loss and unauthorized access by third parties. Our security precautions are verified, adjusted and improved on an ongoing basis.

You should always treat your login data as confidential (user name, password) and close the browser window whenever you have ended the communication with us, particularly whenever you are using the terminal device together with other people.

We take in-house data protection very seriously. Our employees and our commissioned service providers are bound by us to confidentiality and compliance with the statutory data protection provisions.

We cannot verify the websites of our partner companies and can therefore assume no responsibility for how third-party website operators acquire or process your personal data. We recommend that you read the privacy statements of such websites in advance.

8. Duration of processing

We process your personal data only as long as it is necessary for the respective processing purpose or until the legal or contractual retention period for your personal data has expired.

  • In the framework of our services, we store the following for 10 years after the termination of your financing agreement:
    • basic personal data, contact data, identification documents (including photos and recordings from online identity checks), personal status information, salary and income data, cost-of-living data, creditworthiness and loan information, transaction data as well as proposal and contract information.
    • If you apply for financing but do not enter into a financing agreement with bob Finance, your personal data will be deleted after 24 months or already after 24 to 48 hours if you entered your personal data in our online form but failed to submit a financing application.
  • We store electronic correspondence for a maximum period of 5 years, unless the correspondence is required in the context of a legal dispute.
  • If you have consented to receive attractive offers and information about our products from us, we will use your e-mail address for this purpose until you revoke your consent, for example by clicking on the "Unsubscribe" link in our e-mail.

9. Your rights

You have the following rights in connection with your personal data:

  • Consent withdrawal: For those data processing operations to which you have given your consent, you have the right to revoke your consent at any time.
  • Right of access: You also have the right to learn from us which data we process about you and for what purposes, and to require a free copy of your personal data.
  • Right of rectification: If your data is incomplete or incorrect, you have the right to require rectification of your personal data. Some information can be entered independently in your customer account.
  • Right to erasure: You can demand that your personal data be erased, especially if no longer needed for the specified purposes.
  • Right of limitation: You may demand the limitation of the processing and/or disclosure of your personal data.
  • Right of objection: You may object to the processing of your data at any time if we fail to process your data in compliance with data protection law.
  • Right to data delivery and portability: You are entitled to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and, to the extent technically feasible, to have such data transferred unhindered to another data controller.
  • Automated decisions: Where decisions within the framework of this website are based exclusively on automated processing, you may demand a manual review of the decision by a natural person.

If you wish to exercise your rights, please address your request to our data protection officer (contact information in Section 1).

Right to lodge a complaint: If you have reason to believe that bob Finance is not processing your personal data in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations and/or if you do not agree with the response to your request to grant your rights, you can file a complaint with the supervisory authority. The competent data protection authority in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

10. Changes to this Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement is not an integral part of any agreement with you. We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Statement at any time. Any changes or adapted versions of this Privacy Statement will be posted on our website. The current version shall be applicable at all times. We therefore suggest that you visit this webpage regularly and check the date of the latest change at the end of the webpage.

Last updated on 1 September 2023