Privacy Policy

Who we are

LoanScout is a brand operated by Nucleotto (ABN 92 691 707 801). In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Nucleotto.

This policy explains how we handle personal information collected through this website. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Nucleotto operates the LoanScout brand as a marketing and referral platform. We do not provide credit assistance, credit advice or lending services, and we do not assess or approve applications.

The short version

Two different organisations collect information when you use this site, and it matters which is which.

The comparison form is not ours. It is served by RateMatch AI Pty Ltd (ABN 15 687 175 980) inside a frame on our page. What you type into it travels from your browser directly to RateMatch. It does not pass through our website, and we never receive it.

What we collect

Advertising and attribution identifiers.

When you arrive from an advertisement or a campaign link, we store the campaign identifiers from that link in a first-party cookie named rm_attribution on your device, for 90 days. The complete list of what we store is:

• gclid, gbraid, wbraid — Google advertising click identifiers
• msclkid — Microsoft advertising click identifier
• fbclid — Meta advertising click identifier
• utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content — campaign labels

Nothing else is stored in that cookie. These identifiers are assigned by the advertising platform, not by us, and on their own they do not tell us who you are. We use them to understand which campaigns lead to enquiries, and we add them to the address of the comparison form so that RateMatch can attribute your enquiry to the right campaign.

Analytics and advertising measurement.

We use Google Tag Manager to load Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads measurement tags. Through those tags, Google collects and processes information about your visit, including your IP address, device and browser characteristics, the pages you view and the links you activate. Google sets its own cookies for this purpose. Google’s handling of that data is described in Google’s Privacy Policy and in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

We send Google a fixed, pre-defined set of events describing progress through the funnel — for example, that a landing page was viewed, that a comparison was started, that offers were displayed, or that an offer was selected. Each event carries only the name of the event, the loan type, and where on the page the action occurred. Nothing you enter into the comparison form is ever included.

Technical information.

Our hosting provider records standard server log information — IP address, user agent, the time of the request and the page requested — which we use for security, fraud prevention and diagnosing faults.

Information you send us.

If you contact us directly, we collect whatever you choose to include in that message.

What we do not collect

We do not collect, receive, store or have access to any of the following:

• your name, contact details, date of birth or residential address
• your income, employment, expenses, liabilities or bank details
• any identification or supporting document you provide
• any credit report, credit score, or the result of any credit enquiry
• the offers you are shown, or which one you choose

All of that is collected by RateMatch AI Pty Ltd inside its own form, under the consent it obtains from you there. Our page and that form exchange only short technical notices telling us that a step occurred. Our code reads the name of the step and discards the rest of the message, so no application data can reach us even inadvertently.

We do not carry out any credit check. RateMatch may carry out a soft credit check as part of producing your matches; a soft credit check does not affect your credit score and does not appear as a credit application on your credit file. This is explained in the consent shown inside the form.

We do not knowingly collect sensitive information as that term is defined in the Privacy Act — such as health information, or information about racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or religious beliefs.

How we use it

We use the information described above only to:

• operate, maintain and improve this website
• measure which advertising campaigns are effective, and report conversions to the advertising platforms we buy from
• attribute an enquiry made through the comparison form to the campaign that produced it
• detect and prevent fraud, abuse and security incidents
• meet our legal and regulatory obligations

We do not sell personal information.

Who we disclose it to

We may disclose the information we collect to:

• RateMatch AI Pty Ltd — the campaign identifiers described above, so that an enquiry can be attributed. RateMatch separately collects your application information directly from you, under its own consent.
• Google LLC — for the analytics and advertising measurement described above
• our website hosting and infrastructure providers, who process data on our instructions
• our professional advisers, where reasonably necessary
• any person or body to whom we are required or authorised by law to disclose it

We do not disclose your information to lenders or brokers. Any introduction to a lender or broker is made by RateMatch, on the information you gave it.

Overseas disclosure

Some of the providers we use, including Google and our hosting provider, store and process data on servers located outside Australia, including in the United States.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients handle personal information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. However, we may not be able to ensure that an overseas recipient will not breach the Australian Privacy Principles, and you may not be able to seek redress for such a breach under the Privacy Act.

Cookies and how to control them

You can clear or block cookies through your browser settings. Blocking them will not prevent you from using this site or completing a comparison — it only affects our ability to measure advertising.

You can opt out of Google Analytics using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, and manage how ads are personalised for you at My Ad Center.

How we protect it

We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect the information we hold from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. This site is served only over an encrypted connection, and enforces a content security policy that restricts what may load or run on the page.

Because the comparison form is served directly by RateMatch over its own encrypted connection, your application details are never transmitted through our systems and are not exposed to them.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

How long we keep it

• The rm_attribution cookie expires 90 days after your most recent visit from a campaign link, and is stored on your device rather than by us.
• Analytics data is retained by Google in accordance with the retention period configured for our property.
• Server logs are retained by our hosting provider for a limited period for security and diagnostic purposes.
• Correspondence you send us is kept for as long as we reasonably need it, and is then destroyed or de-identified.

Accessing and correcting your information

You may ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. Contact us using the details below.

We will respond within a reasonable period, ordinarily within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity first. If we refuse a request, we will tell you why in writing and how you can complain about that decision.

If your request concerns the information you entered into the comparison form, we cannot help — we do not hold it. Contact RateMatch AI Pty Ltd at compliance@ratematch.ai instead.

Complaints

If you believe we have mishandled your personal information, please contact us first using the details below. We will acknowledge your complaint, investigate it, and aim to respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can refer the complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): www.oaic.gov.au, telephone 1300 363 992, or by post to GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.

A complaint about credit assistance, rather than about privacy, follows a different path — see the complaints information in the footer of this site, which sets out the external dispute resolution scheme that applies.

Data breaches

If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under Part IIIC of the Privacy Act.

Direct marketing

We do not send marketing messages from this website. If that changes, any commercial electronic message we send will identify us and will contain a working unsubscribe facility, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

RateMatch, and any broker or lender you choose to proceed with, may contact you under the consent you give inside the comparison form. Those communications are theirs, not ours, and you should opt out with them directly.

Links to other websites

This site links to websites operated by others, and the comparison form may take you to a broker’s or lender’s own site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. Read their privacy policies before providing information to them.

Children

This website is intended for adults. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always published on this page, with its effective date shown at the top. Material changes will be reflected in a new effective date.

Contact us

For any question about this policy, to request access or correction, or to make a privacy complaint, contact us at:

• Nucleotto (ABN 92 691 707 801)
• Email: [PRIVACY_CONTACT_EMAIL]