Impact of Personal Data Protection Act on Financial Institutions' Contractual Relationship with Clients

Madam, the Personal Data Protection Commission does not condone unreasonable behaviour by organisations. The Commission will look into customers' complaints on contract termination by organisations to assess if those actions were reasonable.

The Commission recognises that if an individual does not provide consent for the use of their personal data for marketing or general transaction purposes, it may be difficult for an organisation to continue to provide the service. For such cases, it may be reasonable for the contractual or business relationship to cease. However, Madam, the Commission also notes that there may be termination cases that would be construed as unreasonable. For example,

Page: 27

it may not be necessary for customers to consent for secondary purposes, like marketing, in order for a financial institution to provide services, such as processing banking transactions. In such cases, the Commission will take up the matter further with the organisation in question if it receives a complaint.

I thank the Minister for the assurance. Very often, banks send out lengthy new terms and conditions without highlighting the main changes and expect the customers to accept the changes. While it appears that the oversight of banks' terms and conditions is under the purview of MAS, I hope the Personal Data Protection Commission could intervene when the terms and conditions relate to Personal Data Protection.

Some banks claim that they are governed under the banking secrecy law and thus will abide to stricter confidentiality clauses. However, the banking secrecy law largely governs the confidentiality of financial transactions and not the customers' contact details which could be used by the banks through their business partners. Thus, would the Minister consider mandating the banks:

(a) to provide the customers an option to receive marketing materials from the company alone and NOT from the bank's affiliated companies or business partners; and

(b) not to have clauses in the terms and conditions that contain threat to terminate the agreement with the customers when the customers disagree with their data protection policy in lock, stock and barrel?

I thank the Member for the suggestion. Currently, there is an ongoing consultation on the rules for the banking sector. I will take these suggestions and forward them to the Commission, together with the Association of Banks of Singapore which is conducting the consultation to consider the Member's suggestion. I do agree with him that we need to try and find ways to ensure that, at the end of the day, the customers are protected not only in terms of their interests but also their data. So, I will bear in mind his suggestions.