Privacy and security
Your Privacy Matters to Us
This section outlines our policy relating to any personal information you might wish to provide us when you visit our site. Your use of our website indicates your acceptance of our website Terms and Conditions and this Privacy and Security Statement.
Our business has been built on trust between our customers and ourselves. Unless legally compelled to disclose, we have a commitment to safeguard and keep confidential any information relating to our customers or their financial affairs. Whether it is provided to us in person at one of our branches, over the phone, or while visiting this site, we will strive at all times to ensure that the information is kept confidential and secure.
We may pass information about you and your dealings with us to other HSBC Group Companies or our agents to the extent allowed by law.
All HSBC Group Companies, all our staff and all third parties with permitted access to your information are specifically required to observe our confidentiality obligations.
We will not collect any personal information that identifies a visitor to this site individually unless specified otherwise. Your visit to this site will record only the Domain Name Server part of your e-mail address and of the pages visited. Such information will be used to prepare aggregate information about the number of visitors to the site and general statistics on usage patterns.
Some of this information will be gathered through the use of "cookies". Cookies are small pieces 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 itself.
You can set your browser to disable persistent cookies and/or session cookies but if you disable session cookies, although you will be able to view our public unsecured website, you will not be able to log onto Internet Banking.
Copyright, Trademarks
We and other parties own the trademarks, logos and service marks displayed on this site and users are prohibited from using the same without our written permission or of such other parties.
The materials on this site are protected by copyright and no part of such materials may be modified, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted (in any form or by any means), copied, distributed, used for creating derivative works or used in any other way for commercial or public purposes without our prior written consent.
No Warranties
While every care has been taken in preparing the information and materials contained in this site, such information and materials are provided to you "as is" without warranty of any kind either express or implied. In particular, no warranty regarding non-infringement, security, accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose or freedom from computer virus is given in conjunction with such information and materials.
E-mail messages sent to us over the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be completely secure. We will not be responsible for any damages incurred by users if they send a message to us, or if we send a message to them at their request, over the Internet. We are not responsible in any manner for direct, indirect, special or consequential damages arising out of the use of this website.
Transmission over the Internet
Due to the nature of the Internet, transactions may be subject to interruption, transmission blackout, delayed transmission and incorrect data transmission. HBEG will not be liable for malfunctions in communications facilities not under our control that may affect the accuracy or timeliness of messages and transactions you send.
Security
We maintain strict security standards and procedures with a view to preventing unauthorised access to your data. We use leading technologies such as (but not limited to) 128 bit version secure socket layer data encryption, fire walls and server authentication to protect the security of your data. Access to your account and account information is protected by a password, which you set.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. If your browser is appropriately configured it should tell you whether the information you are sending will be secure (generally by displaying an icon such as a padlock). The combination of a secure browser at your end and our security measures provide you with the best security currently available.
Once we receive your information, we will take all reasonable steps to protect the information. If we no longer need your information, we will destroy or de-identify it.
Cookies
Our public website and Internet Banking services, along with most other major websites, use cookies. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to the cookie file on your computer’s hard disk. Cookies enable users to navigate around the website and (where appropriate) enable us to tailor the content to fit the needs of visitors who have accessed the site.
We use two types of cookie on our website.
Session cookies, which are temporary cookies that remain in the cookie file of your computer until you close your browser at which point they are deleted.
Persistent or stored cookies that remain permanently on the cookie file of your computer.
Cookies cannot look into your computer and obtain information about you or your family or read any material kept on your hard drive and, unless you have logged onto Internet Banking, cookies cannot be used to identify who you are.
Cookies cannot be used by anyone else who has access to the computer to find out anything about you, other than the fact that someone using the computer has visited a certain website. Cookies do not in any way compromise the security of Internet Banking.
Cookies will not be used to contact you for marketing purposes other than by means of advertisements offered within our Internet Banking services.
Cookies may be used to record details of pages relating to particular products and services that you have visited on our websites. This is to provide us with generic usage statistics to allow us to improve our websites and to provide you with information about products and services that may interest you. Information on products and services may be provided via the website or by other means.
This does not affect your right to opt-out from receiving marketing material from us.
The web browsers of most computers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can set your web browser to disable cookies or to inform you when a website is attempting to add a cookie. You can also delete cookies that have previously been added to your computer’s cookie file.
You can set your browser to disable persistent cookies and/or session cookies but if you disable session cookies, although you will be able to view our public unsecured website, you will not be able to log onto Internet Banking.
If the computer that you are using is set to disable persistent cookies, you will be able to access Internet Banking; however, your navigation of the website may be less enjoyable.
Adobe Analytics
In order to develop our website in line with customer needs HSBC uses Adobe Analytics to track visitor numbers to our website. Adobe Analytics provide HSBC with statistics to show us which pages on our website are visited most frequently and how long visitors spend on our website. We use this information to help us plan how we should improve the website.
Adobe Analytics uses a cookie to track the number of unique users of the site. It basically tells us whether we have a small number of regular visitors to the website or a large number of infrequent visitors. None of the information can be traced to an individual – we do not know who you are as a unique user, merely that there are a certain number of people using the website. The cookie only relates to what goes on in the HSBC website and the information cannot be used for marketing on an individual basis.
IMPORTANT: By accessing this website and any of its pages you are agreeing to the terms set out above.