Data protection declaration

This data protection declaration is intended to inform the users of the Swiss Banking Ombudsman website and its services about the type of personal data we collect, for what purpose and how this data is used.

If you contact the Swiss Banking Ombudsman by telephone, in writing or by any other means, you agree to your personal data being processed in accordance with this data protection declaration.

1. What type of data do we process?

We process the personal data that we receive from you or your representative in the context of an enquiry, a request for mediation or a search request. This includes information that you have given us verbally as well as information that results from the documents you have submitted to the ombudsman’s office.

In addition, we may process data relating to you that we have received from the respondent, i.e. the bank or financial business to which your submission relates.

In certain cases, we supplement your personal data with information from other sources, such as publicly available data search engines or telephone directories.

2. For what purpose do we process your data?

We process your data in order to carry out our duties in accordance with the law, the guidelines of the Swiss Banker’s Association on the treatment of assets without contact and dormant assets held at Swiss banks (Guidelines on Dormant Assets), the foundation statutes and the rules of procedure of the Swiss Banking Ombudsman, or in order to answer your enquiry and, at your request, to check the conditions for carrying out a mediation procedure or a search for contactless or dormant assets and, if the conditions are met, to carry out a corresponding procedure.

3. Access to and disclosure of your data

The employees of the Swiss Banking Ombudsman’s office have access to your data. They are bound to secrecy.

On the basis of our Rules of Procedure or the Guidelines on Dormant Assets, in the course of processing an enquiry, a mediation procedure or a search for contactless or dormant assets, data relating to you may be transferred to the bank or financial business concerned and are then no longer subject to this data protection declaration.

Service providers called in by us may have access to your data for a short period of time for the purpose of maintaining and controlling our data processing systems and in connection with the technical and administrative maintenance of the ombudsman’s office. These service providers are sworn to secrecy by us.

If you submit your enquiry, a request for mediation or a search request to the Banking Ombudsman by telephone, in writing or via the upload function available on our homepage via the Internet, your data will be stored in our case management system on our server in Switzerland.

The transmission of information via the Internet involves certain security risks. We cannot accept any responsibility for the security and confidentiality of data submitted electronically.

4. How can you contact us?

If you have any questions about the processing of your personal data, you can contact us as follows: Andreas Barfuss, Swiss Banking Ombudsman, Bahnhofplatz 9, P.O. Box, 8021 Zurich, Switzerland, Tel. +41 43 266 14 14 (German / English) or Tel. +41 21 311 29 83 (Français / Italiano).

Important note: Please note that the proceedings before the Ombudsman’s Office are confidential and that the parties’ right to access files and, accordingly, their right to information is limited to their own correspondence conducted with the Ombudsman (see Art. 4.5 of the Rules of Procedure for the Swiss Banking Ombudsman and Art. 75 para. 2 and 3 of the Federal Act on Financial Services (FIDLEG)).

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Data protection declaration, Swiss Banking Ombudsman, Status 1 July 2020; subject to change without notice