Privacy Policy
Last updated July 2026
Who we are
Ideal4Finance is a trading name of Ideal Sales Solutions Ltd and is a licensed credit broker, not a lender. Ideal Sales Solutions Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Firm Reference Number 703401. Ideal Sales Solutions Ltd is registered in England and Wales (Company Number 06724294), Registered Office at Unit 3, The Crossroads Business Centre, Freckleton Street, Kirkham, Preston, PR4 2SH.
The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, require companies and individuals who process personal data to explain how it will be used and for what purpose. This policy explains how Ideal Sales Solutions Ltd processes your personal data. We will not use your personal data for any other purpose without first informing you. We regularly review this policy and, if we make any substantial changes, we will post a notice on our website.
How the law protects you
Data protection law says that we can use personal information only if we have a proper reason to do so, including sharing it outside of Ideal4Finance. The law says we must have one or more of these reasons:
To fulfil a contract we have with you, or
When it is our legal duty, or
When it is in our legitimate interest, or
When you consent to it, or
Where the processing falls within a recognised legitimate interest set out in law (for example fraud prevention, safeguarding, or crime detection), which does not require a separate balancing test.
When we have a business or commercial reason of our own to use your information, this is called a 'legitimate interest'. We will tell you what that is if we rely on it as the reason for using your data. Even then, it must not unfairly go against your interests.
The law treats some types of sensitive personal information as special. This includes information about racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, trade union membership, health data and criminal records. We will not collect or use these types of data without your consent unless the law allows us to, and only where it is necessary:
For reasons of substantial public interest, or
To establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
The table below sets out how we use your personal information and which of the reasons above we rely on.
| How we use your Personal Data | The legal basis for doing so | Our legitimate interest |
|---|---|---|
|
Providing, managing and personalising our services; developing and carrying out marketing activities; studying how customers use our services; communicating with you; managing complaints and responding to queries |
Consent / Fulfilling a contract / Legitimate interests / Legal duty |
Keeping records up to date; developing our services; investigating and resolving complaints efficiently; liaising with the Financial Ombudsman Service |
|
Business improvement: testing new ways of delivering services; managing third-party providers; developing new ways to meet customer needs |
Fulfilling a contract / Legitimate interests / Legal duty |
Developing our services; making sure we offer services to the right customers; efficiently meeting our legal and contractual duties |
|
Managing our operations: delivering services; working with lenders and product providers; recording and monitoring communications |
Fulfilling a contract / Legitimate interests / Legal duty |
Efficiently fulfilling our duties; complying with regulator rules; improving our systems and training our staff |
|
Managing security risk and crime prevention: detecting, investigating and preventing financial crime; managing risk; verifying your identity |
Fulfilling a contract / Legitimate interests / Legal duty / Recognised legitimate interests (fraud prevention) |
Improving how we deal with financial crime; complying with regulator rules; being efficient in fulfilling our duties |
|
Marketing activities: contacting you about services we can offer, unless you have opted out or the law prevents it |
Legitimate interests / Consent |
Providing you with information about our services; contacting you electronically only where you have consented |
|
Processing special categories of personal data (e.g. criminal records data used to detect and prevent fraud) |
Substantial public interest / Legal claims / Consent / Regulatory requirement |
Preventing and detecting unlawful or fraudulent behaviour; responding to regulator requests; establishing or defending legal claims |
What do we mean by 'your personal data'?
Your personal data means any information that describes or relates to your personal circumstances. It may identify you directly for example your name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number or indirectly, for example your employment situation or information associated with your cultural or social identity.
Why we process your personal data
UK GDPR requires companies to have a valid lawful basis for processing personal data. When you apply for a loan with Ideal4Finance, you do so on the understanding that you are entering into a contract with us for the supply of credit broking services (see our terms and conditions). We process your personal data to fulfil that contract, including obtaining personal loan quotes from our panel of lenders and providing information throughout the process.
If your application is unsuccessful, or you decide not to proceed, we will store your personal data in line with our retention policy. We may process it in future where it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your rights are not affected for example, responding to a lender or our compliance service provider about advice we gave you, or contacting you for feedback.
We may also process your personal data to meet contractual or other obligations owed to our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, or for wider compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation.
We rely on consent as the lawful basis for marketing. We obtain this by giving you the option to opt in via the relevant boxes on our application form. We will only send information you may be interested in, via the methods you have opted into (phone, email and/or SMS). You can withdraw or amend consent at any time using the link at the bottom of our marketing communications, or by contacting our compliance team (details below).
What personal data do we collect?
Title, names, date of birth, marital status, contact details, addresses, and information necessary to verify your identity
Employment and remuneration information and history, including salary and other income such as pensions and benefits
Bank account details, tax information, loans and credit commitments, personal credit history and family circumstances
Any pre-existing finance products and their terms and conditions
Any other information you disclose to us, verbally or in writing, that is relevant to your application
How we collect your personal data
We may obtain your personal data directly for example, when you apply for a personal loan by telephone or online, or when you contact us with an enquiry by email or web form.
We may also obtain your personal data indirectly:
Through a partner retailer who is an Introducer Appointed Representative, or directly authorised by the FCA, where you have expressed interest in their products or services
From another person or company with authority to act on your behalf
How your personal data will be used
To process a loan application between you and our panel of lenders
To contact you about your loan application throughout the process
To make, or arrange, searches at a credit reference agency or agencies
To market other products or services to you where you have given consent
To exercise or defend our legal rights and/or comply with legal or regulatory requirements
To obtain feedback or request a review once an application has been completed
Who do we share your personal data with?
To provide credit broking services we need to share your personal data with certain companies or individuals, including:
Any person or company acting on your behalf with authority to do so
Credit reference agencies, to perform credit searches and verify your identity
Our panel of lenders and lending partners, so that we can obtain quotes
Other brokers, where we cannot obtain a quote from our own lenders
Third parties who introduced you to us, to help manage their records, resolve complaints or disputes, or process an order you have made with them
Third-party operators that maintain our websites and systems
The Financial Conduct Authority and other regulatory or governing bodies, where necessary for our legitimate interests or a legal obligation
International transfers
Where we, or a service provider acting on our behalf, need to transfer your personal data outside the UK, we will only do so where the UK Government has assessed the destination country as offering an adequate level of data protection, or where appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with UK GDPR (such as the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or a data bridge arrangement). You can request further details of any such transfer by contacting our Complaints Team (see 'How to contact us' below).
How to withdraw your consent
If you no longer wish to receive marketing information from Ideal4Finance, you can withdraw your consent at any time. We will provide an option to opt out every time we send marketing information; alternatively, you can email [email protected] and we will remove your details from future communications, normally within 2 working days.
How long do we retain your personal data?
We only retain your personal data for as long as necessary for the purpose we obtained it. If you have applied for a loan, we will retain your information, electronically or in paper format, for a minimum of 6 years after our business relationship with you has ended, to help with any future complaints. If we hold your details for marketing purposes and you withdraw consent, we will erase your personal data unless it is still required for another purpose set out above.
We keep your personal data secure in line with our legal responsibilities and take reasonable steps to safeguard it against unlawful or malicious access. We also expect you to take reasonable steps to protect your own information when sending it to us — for example, avoiding unprotected email for confidential information, encrypting attachments, and using secure postage for original documents.
Your rights as an individual
UK GDPR gives you the following rights:
Right to be informed - You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your Personal Data. We have set out our privacy policy to be concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible so that information such as our purpose for processing your data and who it will be shared with is clear at the time the data is collected.
Right of access - You have the right to access a copy of your Personal Data. This is commonly referred to as a subject access request. The right of access helps you to understand how and why we are using your data and to check it is being done lawfully. You may need to provide proof of your identity before we can consider your request.
Right to rectification - You have the right to have inaccurate Personal Data rectified or completed if it is incomplete. If the data we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you can contact us and we will rectify it.
Right to erasure (Right to be forgotten) - You have the right to have your Personal Data erased. The right to erasure is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances. For example, we will not be able to erase your Personal Data if it is still necessary for the purpose we originally collected or processed it for.
Right to restrict processing - You have the right to request the processing of your Personal Data is restricted or suppressed. This is not an absolute right and only applies in certain circumstances. Where it does apply, we are permitted to store your Personal Data but not use it.
Right to data portability - You have the right to obtain and reuse your Personal Data for your own purposes across different services. It allows you to move, copy or transfer Personal Data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way. However, it only applies to data processed by automated means (i.e. excluding paper files).
Right to object - You have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Data. You can object to the processing of your Personal Data if it is for direct marketing purposes or based on legitimate interests.
Rights related to automated decision-making, including profiling - Where a significant decision about you is made using automated processing, safeguards apply. See below for details.
On automated decision-making: where we make a significant decision about you based solely on automated processing (for example, an automated credit-risk check), we may do so on the basis of a contract, your consent, or our legitimate interests, provided appropriate safeguards are in place. Those safeguards mean we will tell you when such a decision has been made, give you the opportunity to make representations about it, and allow you to request human review and to contest the decision. Contact our Complaints Team (below) to exercise this right.
You can contact our Complaints Team to exercise any of these rights using the details below.
What cookies do we use?
To make our site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device, as most websites do. A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit, enabling the site to remember your actions and preferences over time.
A few of our pages use cookies to remember your display preferences, whether you have agreed to our use of cookies, and to evaluate our website's advertising and promotional effectiveness. Our pages also use a cookie to anonymously gather statistics on how you arrived at the site and which pages you visited. Enabling these cookies is not strictly necessary for the site to work but improves your browsing experience. You can delete or block cookies, though some features may not then work as intended. Cookie information is not used to identify you personally. See our Cookie Policy for full details.
Internal complaints process
If you have any concerns about how we use your personal data, you must first raise a complaint with Ideal4Finance. Contact the Complaints Team direct at [email protected] to begin. Please give us as much detail as possible so we can investigate your concern properly.
We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receipt.
We will investigate without undue delay.
Once our investigation is complete, we will tell you the outcome and explain any action we have taken, without undue delay.
Complain to our regulator
If you still have concerns following the complaints procedure with Ideal4Finance, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). You will need to provide details of how Ideal4Finance handled your original complaint. Please click here to find out more about the ICO complaints process and to complete the form for a data protection complaint: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
How to contact us
If you would like to contact us to exercise any of your data protection rights, to raise a complaint, or with any queries, contact our Complaints Team:
Complaints Team Ideal Sales Solutions Ltd t/a Ideal4Finance Unit 3, The Crossroads Business Centre, Freckleton Street, Kirkham, Preston, PR4 2SH Tel: 020 3841 2818 Email: [email protected]