Terms of use and Privacy

This document sets out the Terms and Privacy Statement ('Terms') of create.hsbc and any sub-domain (the 'Site'). This Site is operated by HSBC Bank plc, which is owned by HSBC Holdings plc. By accessing this Site, you agree to be bound by the Terms. Before using this Site, you should read the Terms carefully. Publications are references to any publications, research or other documentation uploaded or provided on the Site by us or by any third party provider from time to time.

HSBC Bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. It is listed with the registration number 114216. HSBC Bank plc is a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales with company registration number 14259 and its registered office at 8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ. HSBC Bank plc's registered VAT Number is GB 365684514.

HSBC Bank plc is a member of the Financial Ombudsman Scheme and subscribes to the Lending Code. More detail about this is available on the Lending Standards Board website. For information about accounts and other products you can refer to the Money Advice Service section on the FCA website.

In these provisions:

'Content' means all pages, screens, information and materials (including without limitation: all policies, governance documents, articles, blogs, images, audio, video) included in or accessible through this Site (including any content available on any email or SMS services)
'you', 'your' and 'yours' means you, the individual(s) accessing this Site and the party on whose behalf such individual is doing so (e.g. the individual’s employer)
'we', 'us' and 'our' means HSBC Bank plc
'HSBC Group' means HSBC Holdings plc, its subsidiaries and associated companies from time to time

Site Terms

These Terms cover your use of this Site. All products and services provided by members of the HSBC Group have their own terms and conditions (the 'Product Terms'). You must read both the Product Terms and these Terms. To the extent that the Product Terms conflict with these Terms then the Product Terms will prevail.

Privacy Statement

The Privacy Statement sets out our current policies and demonstrates our commitment to your financial privacy. We may change the content or services found on our Site at any time without notice, and consequently our privacy statement and the Terms may change at any time in the future.

HSBC Bank plc provides financial products and services through its affiliated companies and branches located worldwide. Privacy and personal data protection principles vary from one country to another. When you access or link to any other website, please read the privacy and data protection statements or agreements issued by such other website to determine the policies that apply to information or data maintained by that website.

Information not recommendation

Information or opinions contained on this Site do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation, or offer to buy, any securities or financial instruments or investment advice or any advice or recommendation in respect of such securities or other financial instruments.

Should you seek to rely in any way whatsoever upon any content contained on this Site, you do so at your own risk.

Before you make any decision or take any action that might affect you or your personal finances or business, you should always consult a suitably qualified professional adviser(s) to obtain appropriate financial, legal, accounting, tax and other advice.

Users of the site

The Site is currently intended for you to access it from within the United Kingdom. Because of this we cannot guarantee that the Site or the information thereon complies with law or regulation, or is appropriate for use, in other jurisdictions or places.

If you are accessing this Site either as part of your duties as an employee of an organisation outside of the HSBC Group or as an individual accessing this Site, you represent that you have the requisite authority from your employer to do so. You are wholly responsible for use of the Site by any person using your computer and you must ensure that any such person complies with these Terms. It is your responsibility to keep any relevant login details including passwords protected and confidential.

Any references to products or services on this Site do not constitute an offer or recommendation of any products or services provided by any of the HSBC Group members. The information provided on this Site is not intended for distribution to, or use by, any person in any jurisdiction where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation. This Site should not be considered as communicating any invitation or inducement to engage in banking or investment activity or any offer to buy or sell any securities or other instruments outside Authorised Countries which are any jurisdictions where HSBC Bank plc is licensed or authorised to perform such activities.

Your use of this Site is subject to the applicable laws and regulations of any relevant jurisdiction. HSBC Group members may decline to provide you as an individual and/or the party on whose behalf you are using the Site (as applicable) with access to the Site.

Products discussed on this Site may not have been registered or authorised by any central bank, governmental or regulatory authority in the Authorised Countries or in the country of your residence. Accordingly, you may not have the benefit of protection from the securities laws, banking laws and other relevant laws and regulations of your country of residence with respect to products or services referred to on or through this Site.

No representation is given that any securities, products, or services discussed in or accessible through this Site are suitable for you or any particular person/organisation. You acknowledge that your use of this Site and any requests for information you have made as a result of visiting this Site are not the result of an offer made by HSBC Bank plc or any of its affiliates and that the provision of any information through this Site shall not constitute or be considered investment or financial advice.

Content

The content of any Publication should only be considered current as of the date of initial publication appearing thereon, without regard to the date you may access such Publication. This includes any opinion or estimate contained in the Publication, which reflect a judgment considered valid only at the original date of publication.

The Publications may be subject to periodic revision and updates and we reserve our rights to delete or modify any content of any or all of the Publications at our sole discretion and without prior notice to you. While we will attempt to provide you with timely updates of Publications, we are under no specific obligation to do so. Any update provided to you will be made available through the Site, and it is your responsibility to access any such update as you may deem it necessary.

While we actively encourage comments and conversations, we ask that people treat one another with respect and consideration and keep their comments on topic. Swearing or abuse will not be tolerated and off-topic comments may be removed. Malicious and harmful users that repeatedly abuse our blog/comments function will be blocked from our Site.

By using this Site and providing any Content/comments on the Site, you grant HSBC an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty free, transferable licence to use (for whatever purpose) such content posted by you. We reserve the right to repost, or repurpose for future posting, all content shared with create.hsbc However, we also reserve the right to be selective as to which pieces of content we use.

No warranties

The following clauses exclude or limit our legal liability for the Site. You should read them carefully. They all apply only as far as the law permits, and in particular we do not exclude or restrict our duties and liabilities to you under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (the "Act"), or the rules of the FCA for the conduct of business.

While we have taken reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy, currency, availability correctness and completeness of the information contained on the Site, information is provided on an "as is", "as available" basis and we do not give or make any warranty or representation of any kind, whether express or implied. The use of the Site is at your sole risk. We shall not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever and howsoever arising as a result of your use of or reliance on the information contained on the Site to the maximum extent permitted by law.

We do not represent or warrant that the Site will be available and meet your requirements, that access will be uninterrupted, that there will be no delays, failures, errors or omissions or loss of transmitted information, that no viruses or other contaminating or destructive properties will be transmitted or that no damage will occur to your computer system. You have sole responsibility for adequate protection and back up of data and/or equipment and for undertaking reasonable and appropriate precautions to scan for computer viruses or other destructive properties.

We make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy, functionality or performance of any third party software that may be used in connection with the Site.

Third party sites and endorsements

Where we provide hypertext links to other locations on the Internet, we do so for information purposes only. We are not responsible for the content of any other websites or pages linked from or linking to this Site. We have not verified the content of any such websites. Following links to any other websites or pages shall be at your own risk and we shall not be responsible or liable for any damages or in other way in connection with linking. Links to downloadable software sites are for convenience only and we are not responsible or liable for any difficulties or consequences associated with downloading the software. Use of any downloaded software is governed by the terms of the license agreement, if any, which accompanies or is provided with the software.

No endorsement or approval of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressed or implied by any information on our Site.

Trade marks and copyright

Copyright, trade marks and other applicable intellectual property and proprietary rights in the pages screens, information and material in their arrangement and/ or any Content included in this Site is owned by or licensed to HSBC Bank plc or a member of the HSBC Group, its or their licensors. The software which operates the Website (the “Software”) is proprietary to HSBC or its licensors and you are not permitted to use it except as expressly allowed under these Website Terms and Conditions. You may imprint, copy, download or temporarily store extracts from our Site as required for you to carry out you duties as instructed by HSBC. You must not alter anything. Any other use (including without limitation, the sharing of Content with any third party organisation or any individual who is not an HSBC employee) is prohibited unless you first get our written permission. In particular no one may use a part of our Site on any other website, or link any other website to our Site, without our prior written permission.

HSBC is a trademark of HSBC Group and all rights in and to HSBC vest in the HSBC Group. Other than as provided above you may not use or reproduce the HSBC trademark, logo or brand name.

Nothing contained on the Site should be considered as granting, by implication, estoppel or otherwise, any license or right to use any trade marks, logos or other names, including but not limited to, those identifying HSBC, the HSBC Group Members, their licensors, suppliers or contractors, or their respective products and services referenced on the Site, without the expressed written consent of the applicable rights holder.

Internet e-mail

Messages sent over the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be completely secure, as they are subject to possible interception or loss or possible alteration. We are not responsible for them and will not be liable to you or anyone else for any damages or otherwise in connection with any message sent by you to the Bank or any message sent by the Bank to you over the Internet.

Social Media

HSBC operates channels, pages and accounts on some social media sites to inform, assist and engage with customers. Unless stated otherwise, these are intended for UK customers. We monitor and record comments and posts made on these channels about HSBC so that we can improve our services.

HSBC is not responsible for any information posted on those sites other than information we have posted ourselves. We do not endorse the social media sites themselves, or any information posted on them by third parties or other users.

HSBC doesn't give investment, tax or other professional advice via social media sites. You should always seek independent advice before making such decisions.

When you engage with HSBC via social media your personal data may be stored on that social media site's servers, which are outside the control of HSBC and may be in the US or elsewhere outside the EU. Any information posted to such sites may be accessed and read by the general public. It is not an appropriate forum to discuss customers' products or financial arrangements. HSBC will not ask you to share personal, account or security information via social media sites, and you should not post such information on those channels.

HSBC regularly updates and monitors our social media accounts and welcomes feedback and ideas submitted via these channels. HSBC endeavours to join the conversation whenever possible, however cannot guarantee to read or reply to all messages sent to official HSBC social media accounts.

Emerging themes and helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people within HSBC for consideration, but no guarantee is made that any proposals will be acted upon.

Twitter

HSBC operates the following official Twitter streams in the UK

www.twitter.com/hsbc_uk_press
www.twitter.com/hsbc_uk_online
www.twitter.com/hsbc_uk_careers
www.twitter.com/hsbc_uk_help
www.twitter.com/HSBC_UK

If any of the HSBC streams above follow another user then this does not imply endorsement of any kind.

Facebook

HSBC operates the following official Facebook pages in the UK:

https://www.facebook.com/hsbcstudents
https://www.facebook.com/hsbcuk

To see the full terms of use relating to our Facebook pages please visit the official HSBC Facebook page.

Governing law

The Terms are governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and the courts of the above jurisdiction will have non-exclusive jurisdiction in respect of any dispute, which may arise.

Your queries

If you wish to contact HSBC Bank plc, please visit www.hsbc.com.

Your privacy is important to us. This notice (Privacy Notice) applies to personal information we collect from you when you use this site. If you’re an HSBC customer, or otherwise have a relationship with us, we may also have provided you with a separate privacy notice setting out how we use your personal information, which will also apply. You can also find that privacy notice by visiting the website for the product or services we provide you (for example, www.hsbc.co.uk) or by contacting your customer service team.

Some of the links on this website may lead to HSBC or non-HSBC websites with their own privacy notices, which may be different to this notice, and you should read those notices carefully.

For the purposes of this Privacy Notice, the data controller is HSBC Holdings plc with its address at 8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ, UK. We’ve also set out contact details towards the end of this notice.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following information about you:

Information that you provide to us, such as when you register to use the Site Such information may include (but not limited to your title and name, job title, email address), passwords, access rights, usage data, IP address and data contained in messages sent through the Site.
We may also ask you for information if you experience problems when using this site. We may also ask you to complete surveys for research purposes, although you don’t have to respond to these.
Information that we obtain or learn, such as information about the browser or device you use to access this site, how you use this site and the pages you visit, traffic and location data

If we have an existing relationship with you, and we are able to identify you from information obtained or provided by your use of the site, we may associate those sets of information, for example to enable us to respond to a query you have submitted.

How we use your information

We’ll only use your information where we have your consent or we have another lawful reason for using it. Unless we say otherwise below, we’ll use your personal information on the basis that it’s within our legitimate interests in operating and maintaining the site, and providing you with site functionality and related services. We use information provided or obtained via this site to:

manage the Site
perform maintenance and other support services
respond to your queries (for example, if you’ve asked a question or submitted a report via the site)
allow you to participate in any interactive features of the Site
notify you about changes to the Site
provide you with alerts or updates where you’ve consented to receive these by registering on the site
ensure Site content is presented in the most effective manner for the device you’re accessing it from
undertake data analytics to learn more about how you and others interact with this site and with our advertising
detect and prevent misuse or abuse of this site or our services

We also use information to meet our compliance obligations, to comply with other laws and regulations and to share with regulators and other authorities that HSBC Group companies are subject to. This may include using it to help detect or prevent crime (including terrorism financing, money laundering and other financial crimes). We’ll only do this on the basis that it’s needed to comply with a legal obligation, it’s in our legitimate interests and that of others or to prevent or detect unlawful acts.

Who we’ll share your information with

We may share your information in order to provide you with products or services you’ve requested (for example, if they’re not provided by the HSBC entity operating this site), if we have a legitimate interest in doing so (e.g. to manage risk, verify your identity, to combat fraud, abuse of our site or services), or where you’ve agreed to us doing so.

We may share your information with others including other HSBC group companies and any of our service providers, anyone else whose products and services you’ve requested, anyone who we’re under an obligation to disclose information to or where it’s in the public interest, for example to prevent or detect fraud, abuse of our site or services).

IP addresses

We may collect information about your computer (or mobile device), including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration or for our own commercial purposes. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns.

How long we’ll keep your information

We keep your information in line with our data retention policy. For example, we’ll normally keep registered members registration details for a period of six months. This enables us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or use it where we need to for our legitimate purposes such as dealing with any enquiries.

We may need to retain your information for a longer period where we need the information to comply with regulatory or legal requirements or where we may need it for our legitimate purposes, e.g. to help us respond to queries or complaints, fighting fraud and financial crime, responding to requests from regulators, etc. If we don’t need to retain information for this period of time, we may destroy, delete or anonymise it more promptly.

Transferring your information overseas

Your information may be transferred to and stored in locations outside the European Economic Area (EEA), including countries that may not have the same level of protection for personal information. When we do this, we’ll ensure it has an appropriate level of protection and that the transfer is lawful.

You can obtain more details of the protection given to your information when it’s transferred outside the EEA by contacting us using the details in the ‘More details about your information’ section below.

Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to the information that we hold about you. These rights include the right to access information we hold about you and to obtain information about how we process it

in some circumstances, the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information, which you can do at any time. We may continue to process your information if we have another legitimate reason for doing so;
in some circumstances, the right to receive certain information you have provided to us in an electronic format and / or request that we transmit it to a third party;
the right to request that we rectify your information if it’s inaccurate or incomplete;
in some circumstances, the right to request that we erase your information. We may continue to retain your information if we’re entitled or required to retain it;
the right to object to, and to request that we restrict, our processing of your information in some circumstances. Again, there may be situations where you object to, or ask us to restrict, our processing of your information but we’re entitled to continue processing your information and / or to refuse that request.

You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the details set out in the ‘More details about your information’ section below. You also have a right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office by visiting www.ico.org.uk, or to the data protection regulator in the country where you live or work.

How we keep your information secure

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.

More details about your information

If you’d like further information on anything we’ve said in this Privacy Notice, or to contact our Data Protection Officer, contact us at P.O. Box 6201, Coventry CV3 9HW addressed ‘for the attention of the DPO’.

This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time, and you’ll always be able to find the most recent version on this site.

Terms of use and privacy

﻿In these provisions: