Privacy and cookie policy

Privacy statement

This is the privacy statement of MBNA Europe Bank Limited (MBNA is a Bank of America company). Whilst exploring the services offered through this and websites owned by other members of the Bank of America Group, please be alert for and review any specialised privacy statements and terms of use applicable to particular products or websites, or portions thereof, as they may differ depending on group, company, product or service.

Further protection of your privacy - policies of other service providers

Whilst exploring the services offered through our website, please be aware that other online retailers, partners, third party internet sites and third party services accessible through our website have separate privacy and data collection policies and practices which are independent of and may differ from our policies and practices. MBNA is not responsible or liable for these independent policies and practices. It is your responsibility to review them and decide whether such policies and practices satisfactorily protect your rights.

Customer privacy is important to us

The Bank of America group is committed to providing our customers with the finest products backed by consistently top-quality service. Furthermore, we fully recognise the importance of keeping our customers’ personal and account information secure.

We use established and exacting security standards to protect customer information from unauthorised access. We verify the identity of our customers through the use of personal passwords or other information before assisting them. We also use vigilant protection measures in order to protect our customers’ accounts from fraudulent use.

Personal information

The Bank of America website server automatically recognises and records the domain name from which you access the internet and the names of the pages you visit while at our site. In doing this, we do not gather or store any personal information about you. We do not store your electronic mail address (unless you choose to provide that to us). The information gathered may be used to improve the content of the Bank of America website and make it more useful. Any personal information which you provide to us when you apply for a product or hold an account with us will be used in accordance with the terms and conditions of the particular agreement which you have entered into with us and in accordance with data protection legislation in the United Kingdom or Ireland, as applicable.

Advertising services

MBNA uses third-party companies to show advertisements on our website and other websites. These companies help MBNA execute, optimise, and measure the effectiveness of our online banner advertising programs. These companies use cookies and non-obvious personal information (e.g., information that does not include name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visit to this and other websites to measure advertising effectiveness and to provide advertisements about goods and services that may interest you. MBNA also helps other companies, including e.g. Adobe to execute, optimise, and measure the effectiveness of their advertising programs by allowing them to use cookies or similar technologies on our website. If you would like to learn more about these practices, view the privacy notices of these third party companies, or opt out of their use of non-obvious personal information, click the link to our third party advertising service provider below.

Adobe
www.adobe.com/misc/privacy.html

MBNA’s banner advertisements and online applications may contain small graphics with tags in them. These tags are not personally identifiable and work in conjunction with these cookies. These tags allow us to measure the effectiveness and response rates of our advertising.

Cookies, similar files and other technologies

Cookies are pieces of information which are stored directly on the computer you are using. We, or our third party advertising service providers (see Advertising services for details), may place cookies or similar files on your computer when you visit our website. They are used for:

Collecting information – cookies help us collect data about you and how you use our services – for example, we’re interested in which internet browser you used to visit our website, how long you visited and which pages you looked at.

We monitor the information gathered to understand how we can improve the design and functionality of our website to better serve you in future.

We may also use cookies and other files to track other things, such as the number of responses we receive to our online advertisements and which other websites our customers visit.

Tailoring your experience – the information we collect can also be used to gauge which advertisements or offers are most likely to appeal to you, so we can display more relevant content to you on our website.

Security – when you log in to Online Card Services, our SiteKey™ system recognises the cookie stored on the computer you usually use. If you log in from another computer, you’ll be presented with additional security questions. This is an example of how cookies help keep your information secure.

Cookies and similar files do not capture unencrypted personal information.

The cookies we use – we track your activities with a range of cookies when you visit our website:

You can choose to disable cookies by altering your browser settings (via the ‘Tools’ menu), however if you do, you may experience inconvenience when using some online services. For example, when you log in to Online Card Services we will not be able to recognise your computer and you’ll need to answer a security question each time you log in. Also, you may not receive advertisements or offers from us that are relevant to your interests and needs.

Want to know more about cookies? The Interactive Advertising Bureau has produced a guide which explains how cookies work and how they are managed – visit www.allaboutcookies.org to read more.

Similar files

MBNA also uses files called Flash Objects in connection with Online Card Services. This is used to help assure security as part of our SiteKey™ service. As with cookies, we never store personal information unless encrypted.

Other technologies

Other technologies we use may capture customer specific data to help us understand how customers use our site and to assist us with resolving customers’ questions regarding the use of our site.

Information We Collect

When you visit this site, we may collect certain types of information from you, such as information you voluntarily provide via forms, surveys, applications, etc. We may also collect information about you from your online browsing and transactions, including your preferences, pages visited, technical information regarding your computer and operating systems, such as your internet protocol address, domain name, system configuration and settings. See Cookies, similar files and other technologies for details.

Privacy and cookie policy changes

We may change this privacy and cookie policy from time to time. When such a change is made, we will post a revised version on this website. Changes will be effective when they are posted. It is your responsibility to review this privacy and cookie policy from time to time to be aware of any such change. Your continued use of the service will indicate your agreement to any such change.

This privacy and cookie policy was last reviewed in March 2012.

This Privacy and cookie policy is published by MBNA Europe Bank Limited, a Bank of America company, registered in England under number 2783251. The Registered Office address is Stansfield House, Chester Business Park, Chester CH4 9QQ. Bank of America is at your service 24 hours a day 7 days a week and can be contacted via the telephone on 0800 456 1234.