• Absa’s commitment to information privacy and confidentiality

    Absa Bank (Mauritius) Limited, (“Absa”) having Registration Number C10068913 and head office at Sir William Newton Street, Port Louis.

  • Absa treats your personal data responsibly

    1. Absa will treat all your personal data carefully and responsibly.

    2. Personal data is any information that allows Absa identify you as a unique individual, such as your name/s and surname combined with your home address, your contact details such as an email address, and a passport or identification number. 
       
    3. Absa further applies the same level of safety measures to protect the data of a legal entity, such as the trading name of a company combined with the company registration number, as we do for an individual.

    4. Special categories of personal data include, inter alia, details pertaining to your race or ethnic origin, religious and philosophical beliefs, political persuasion, trade union membership, health or sex life, biometric information or any criminal behaviour that relates to alleged criminal offences or proceedings.

    5. Personal data may be given to or collected by Absa in writing as part of email communications, a written application form, electronically (email), telephonically, online (www.absabank.mu) or via Absa Banking Apps.

    6. Processing of personal data includes collecting, using, altering, merging, linking, organising, disseminating, storing, retrieving, disclosing, erasing, archiving, destroying or disposing of personal data.

  • Your personal data is an important part of our relationship with you

    7.  Absa will only process your data (initial, subsequent and ongoing processing), in line with the specified purpose to which you have consented for or where the processing is necessary to:

    • Enable us to comply with the requirements of applicable laws and regulations;
    • For the legitimate interests pursued by Absa or by a third party to whom the data are disclosed, except if the processing is unwarranted in any particular case having regard to the harm and prejudice to your rights and freedoms or legitimate interests;
    • For the purpose of historical, statistical or scientific research;
    • The processing carried out, relates to or is necessary for, any of the purposes set out under the Data Protection Act 2017, as may be amended from time to time..
       

    8. The  purposes for which Absa collects and processes your personal data include, but are not limited to:

    • Creating a record of you on our system in order to provide you with the products and/or services you have applied for;
    • Communicate with and keep you informed about these products and/or services;
    • Assessing whether you qualify for credit, or an increase or decrease of your credit limit;
    • Identifying you and verifying your physical address, source of income and similar information;
    • Assessing your personal financial circumstances and needs before providing services to you
    • Any purpose related to the prevention of financial crime, including sanctions screening, monitoring of anti-money laundering and any financing of terrorist activities;
    • Further processing for historical, statistical or research purposes where the outcomes will not be published in an identifiable format;
    • Conducting analytics operations to better understand you as our customer so that we can tailor our product and/or service offerings to you, where relevant and applicable;
    • Providing tax-related information to tax authorities;
    • For purposes relating to the sale or transfer of any of our businesses, legal entities or assets as part of corporate transactions;
    • Where you have applied for employment at Absa, we perform applicant screening and background checks;
    • Where you are an Absa employee (including contractors), we create an employment record of you on our system to facilitate continuous monitoring during your employment with us;
    • Where you are an Absa director, we create a record of you as a director on our system;
    • Where you are a related party (family members of senior officers of Absa), we create a record of you, for reporting as required;
    • Where you’ve been identified as a next of kin by an employee or customer, we create a record of you on our system; and
    • Where you are a supplier or third party to Absa, we process your personal data for due diligence, risk assessment, administrative and payment purposes..

     

    9.  The collection of certain personal data fields are mandatory for Absa to provide you with your chosen product and/or service or onboard you as an employee, supplier, director or job applicant. This information can be provided in writing, electronically or telephonically, but it must be accurate and complete. These fields are indicated by an asterisk (or as otherwise indicated) on the respective forms/websites. If Absa does not receive the necessary personal data, we will not be able to continue with your application.
     

    10.  If you are already a(n) customer/employee/supplier/third party/director and Absa asks you for this information and you do not provide it, Absa will have to suspend the provision of the product, arrangements and/or services for a period of time, or as the case may be, terminate our relationship with you.
     

    11.  In most cases, personal data will be collected directly from you, but there may be other instances when Absa will collect personal data from other sources. These may include public records, places where you may already have made your personal information public (for example, on social media), credit bureaus, or individuals/directors whom you have appointed as your representative, where you are a corporate entity. Absa will only collect your personal data from other sources where we are legally entitled or obliged to do so, or you have provided us with your consent. You are entitled to ask Absa to disclose which sources they used to collect your personal data.  

  • Absa will process and transfer your personal data securely

    12.  Absa has implemented appropriate security and organisational measures for the safety of your personal data. Measures implemented, consists of, but not limited to the following safeguards:

    • the prevention of unauthorised access to;
    • the alteration of;
    • the disclosure of;
    • the accidental loss of; and
    • the destruction of the data in our control.

     

    13.  For the purposes outlined in paragraph 8 (above), Absa will, in most instances, collect, process and/or transfer your personal data internally. However, there are times when Absa needs to outsource these functions to third parties, either within Absa Group or external to Absa, including parties in other countries.

    • Absa will only make use of Third parties who have similar security measures in place for the safekeeping of personal data.
    • Where your personal data is shared internally within Absa or externally with third party suppliers, such sharing will be carried out only for the purposes outlined in paragraph 8.
    • Absa will not share your personal data with third parties who do not need it, or where Absa is not legally permitted to do so.

     

    14.  Absa will not share your personal information with third parties who do not need your personal information, or where Absa is not legally permitted to do so. When Absa decides to transfer your personal information to third parties, we will only provide it to organisations that have data privacy policies equivalent to Absa’s, or subject to appropriate contractual obligations, or to those who are subject to laws relating to the processing of personal information that are similar to those that apply to Absa.

     

     

  • Absa respects your rights

    15.  Under the local Data Protection Act (DPA) or the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (for residents of the European Union or United Kingdom as may be applicable), you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

    • The right to access your personal data that we have on record.
    • The right to withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal
    • The right to ask Absa to correct any of your personal data that is incorrect. These requests must be sent to us in writing using this form.
    • The right to ask Absa to delete or destroy your personal data.
    • The right to object to Absa processing your personal data. Such requests must be sent to Absa in writing using this form. However, the result of such a request may be that Absa is required to suspend the provision of products and/or services for a period, or even terminate our relationship with you.
    • The right to object in writing, at any time to the processing of personal data for the purpose of direct marketing
    • The right to request Absa in writing, to port your personal data to another party in terms of applicable laws. Such requests must be sent to us in writing using this form.
    • The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.

     

    16.   Absa’s records are subject to regulatory retention periods, which means that Absa may not be able to delete or destroy your personal data immediately upon request. Where the purpose for keeping personal data has lapsed, Absa shall destroy the data as soon as is reasonably practicable and in line with prevailing record retention legislation.

     

    17.   There may be instances where Absa will process your personal data through a secure automated tool, or perform profiling resulting in a decision that may affect you significantly (for example, the automatic non-approval of a personal loan that you may have applied for through any of our online channels, or the automatic non-approval of an application for employment, or engagement as a supplier) If you are unhappy about the outcome of such a decision or would like further information on how such outcome was reached, please contact

    • Your Local Customer Service centre (for customers);
    • Your resourcing consultant (for job applicants);
    • Your people business partner (for employees);
    • Your supplier relationship manager (for suppliers); or
    • The Company Secretary office (for directors of Absa-owned companies).

     

    18.   As a customer of Absa, if you opt-in for direct marketing, we may use your personal information to tell you about products or services we think you might be interested in. We may also offer a personal loan to you if you’ve shown an interest in the market in a personal loan product.  To do this, we may contact you via SMS, email, telephone, or post. Should you not wish to receive direct marketing communication from us, you can immediately update your preferences via our website, banking app, by getting in touch with our contact center or with a service representative at any of our branches.

     

    19.   As a non-customer, if you would like to receive marketing information from Absa, please submit your details to Absa in writing.

     

    20.   If you have a complaint relating to the protection of your personal data, including the way in which it has been collected or processed by Absa, please contact us using the local contact details as listed below. If you have not had your complaint dealt with satisfactorily, you may lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Office at http://dataprotection.govmu.org in terms of applicable privacy and confidentiality laws.

     

    21.  There may be circumstances in which Absa may not be able to process a request as a result of its legal and/or regulatory obligations. In such instances, Absa shall duly inform you of such restrictions.

     

     

     

  • Right to amend this statement

    Absa reserves the right to change this statement at any time. All changes to this statement will be posted on the website. Unless otherwise stated, the current version shall supersede and replace all previous versions of this statement.

  • Contact details

    You may contact our Data Privacy Officer, for any query regarding the above.

     

    Email: dpo@absa.africa

    Telephone: + 230 4041124

    Address: Absa Bank (Mauritius) Limited

Need more help?

  24/7 Service Centre: +230 402 1000

  Abby on WhatsApp: +230 5919 0001

  Email: customer.contact@absa.africa

Talk to us   Find us