Cookies Policy

All cookies are either session cookies or persistent cookies.

Session cookies last for the length of your visit to a website. They delete themselves when you close your browser. Session cookies can help with security. For instance, they can keep you logged on as you move around a website.

Persistent cookies stay on your device when you close your browser. Persistent cookies are used for many jobs. For instance, they can remember your User ID for websites where you log on. They can also store your choices for when you go back to a website.

Organisations find them useful to see how people use their websites. We may also use them to tailor the ads and marketing you see on social media, apps and other websites.

Whether a cookie is first or third party depends on where it comes from.

First party cookies are set by websites you go to.

Third party cookies are set by outside organisations such as social media, search engines, other advertising networks, and our business partners.

Our Third Party Partners

If you have given us your consent, we may allow third parties to collect your data by setting their own cookies on your device.

You can change your choices at any time. Select the ‘Cookies’ link at the bottom of any page of our website and go from there.

Here are links to the information notices for our main Third Party Partners.

Google	How Google use cookies in advertising How Google uses the data it collects Types of cookies we use with Google
Oracle Cloud		Oracle Cloud Data Privacy Policy Opt-out from Oracle cookies
Meta		Meta Cookies Policy Meta Privacy Policy
Microsoft Advertising (Bing/Yahoo)		Legal, privacy and security policies – Microsoft Advertising Microsoft Privacy Statement – Microsoft privacy
LinkedIn		LinkedIn Cookie Policy

Some of our cookies collect data for more than one use. We will only use these cookies for their essential purposes unless you have given your consent to any other uses they have.

Turning off one or more types of cookies won’t delete any that have been downloaded in the past. We may still use data we collected up to that point, but will stop collecting new data.

You can turn off or delete cookies in your browser. If you do this, it may affect sites that use similar cookies to us.

Cookies choices you set in your browser replace any you set on a single website. For instance, if you run an ad blocker on your browser, you won’t see ads that are tailored to you. This will still be true, even if you have turned on marketing cookies.

Find out how to manage cookies in common browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari) on the Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) website

This section explains more about the technologies we use to review how you interact with emails we send you. It explains why we do this, and how you can stop it

We review how you interact with emails we send you by using small images that you cannot see called ‘pixels’ within our emails. These pixels allow us to capture some information about emails we’ve sent you, such as:

• When you opened the email
• How many times you opened it, and
• The device you used to open it.

This is called ‘email tracking’. We use this information to help us to understand how effective our emails are, and to improve our communications with you. The pixel stays in the email, but leaves nothing else on your device.

How to stop email tracking

You can stop this by:

• Closing the email before you download any images
• Setting your browser or email program to restrict or block our emails. 
• Sometimes your browser or email program setting will automatically download images. For more details on this, you’ll need to read the instructions for your browser, email program or device.

Different types of cookies do different jobs on our website. Some are needed to make the website work. We need your consent to use others that are not essential. You can change your choices at any time. Just click the ‘Cookies’ link at the end of any page.

Strictly necessary cookies – You can’t turn off these cookies. These cookies are needed to run our website, to keep it secure if you are logged on and to obey regulations that apply to us.  If you are a customer, they help us know who you are so that you can log on and manage your accounts. They also help us keep your details safe and private. Other important jobs they do are:

• Help you move around the site
• Tell us if you’ve been to it before and which pages you went to
• Tell us how the site is working, so we can find and fix any problems.

Functional cookies – You can’t turn off these cookies.  These cookies are used for remembering things like:

• Your user ID on a log on page
• Your region or country
• Your preferred language
• Accessibility options like large font or high contrast pages.

Performance cookies – We’ll ask for your consent to use these cookies. These cookies tell us how you and our other customers use our website. We combine all this data together and study it. This helps us to:

• Improve the performance of our services
• Improve the products we provide.

Marketing and Tailored Advertising cookies – We’ll ask for your consent to use these cookies. These cookies help us understand which of our products, services and offers may be relevant for you. They also held us tailor and measure how effective are on other websites, social media, apps and devices, like Smart TVs.

If you provide consent, we may also share your phone number and email address with selected partners. When we share your information this way, we protect it by changing its characteristics to random letters and numbers: a ‘key’. Selected partners can only identify that this is your information if you already hold an account with them, and they hold the same key. We do this so we can show you ads on other selected partners’ platforms.

If you turn off marketing cookies, you’ll still see our ads in your online banking/online services/internet banking, but these will be tailored only by what we already know about you.

You can turn off marketing cookies in the data consents section of your mobile app, or on our website by visiting the cookie policy page. If you turn off marketing cookies and any use of your information to tailor marketing to you, you’ll still see our ads online, but they may not be for things that interest you.

Click here to view our case studies >