Cookies are small text files with non-personal data that websites can store on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or to work more efficiently for visitors, as well as to provide reporting information.

Cookies set by the website owner are called "first party cookies".

Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called "third party cookies". Third party cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website (e.g. advertising or analytics). The parties that set these third party cookies can recognise your computer both when it visits the website in question and also when it visits certain other websites.

Similar technologies are those which perform a comparable function to cookies. However they are not technically defined as cookies. For more free information please see: www.aboutcookies.org.

These stay on your machine until expiry or deletion (many of these have automatic deletion dates).

We use this type of cookie to provide you with the online services you have requested.

These are temporary cookies, containing non-personal data, which remain on your machine whilst you are on our website.

We use this type of cookie to provide website analytics which help us to improve the website by reviewing traffic reports. For example, we would be able to see that 1,000 people visited our savings page yesterday but we could not personally identify these visitors.

We use first and third party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our websites to operate, and we refer to these as "essential" cookies.

Third parties serve cookies through our websites for advertising, analytics and other purposes.

We use cookies to enable us to improve our website by analysing information about website traffic patterns, sometimes using third parties to assist in analysis of this data.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

• Google Chrome 
• Microsoft Edge 
• Mozilla Firefox 
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 
• Opera 
• Apple Safari 

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.  To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on Download Page.

Further information on different types of cookies is provided below.

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our websites and to use some of their features, such as access to secure areas.

• __af is the anti forgery token required for logging on
• __rememberMe is required for remembering the username when logging on
• __sid is required for the session ID when logging on
• iecookiecookie and cookiePolicy_notified are used to track your cookie consent (i.e. stop the cookie notification banner showing every time you visit)

Cloudflare:

•  __cfduid is a security cookie from CloudFlare and is a required cookie. It lasts one month

Kentico:

• RequestVerificationToken is a session cookie for security
• ASP.NET_SessionID is a session cookie which keeps the session ID of the user for security reasons
• CMSCsrfCookie is a session cookie for security (which stops cross-site request forgery)

These cookies store your personal settings that you have entered, so next time you visit our websites everything is saved as you prefer.

• ieAccountGrid is used for the account grid state (grid or list)

Kentico:

• CookiesAccepted is a functional cookie that stops the cookie bar popping up once you’ve closed it. It lasts 90 days

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the website. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone, including the number of visitors to the website and blog, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited. Read Google’s overview of privacy and safeguarding data here.

• __utma is used to distinguish users and sessions
• __utmc is used to determine whether the user is in a new session/visit
• __utmz stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached the website
• _ga is used to distinguish users
• _gid is used to distinguish users

Cookies are not the only way to recognise or track visitors to a website. We may use other, similar technologies from time to time, like web beacons (sometimes called "tracking pixels" or "clear gifs"). These are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enable us to recognise when someone has visited our websites or opened an email including them.

This allows us, for example, to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within a website to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to the website from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to improve site performance, and to measure the success of e-mail marketing campaigns.

In many instances, these technologies are reliant on cookies to function properly, and so declining cookies will impair their functioning.

In addition, we use WhatConverts. This is a processor that is controlled by our third-party, MNA, to track (in terms of overall volumes and enquiry types) some web forms. For information relating to completing and submitting website forms, please see our Privacy Notice, within our Privacy Policy.  For more information about WhatConverts visit https://www.whatconverts.com/gdpr

Third parties may serve cookies on your computer or mobile device to serve advertising through our websites. These companies may use information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide relevant advertisements about goods and services that you may be interested in.

They may also employ technology that is used to measure the effectiveness of advertisements. 

This can be accomplished by them using cookies or web beacons to collect information about your visits to this and other sites in order to provide relevant advertisements about goods and services of potential interest to you. The information collected through this process does not enable us or them to identify your name, contact details or other details that directly identify you unless you choose to provide these.

Though not linked to cookies, when information is submitted via a form on one of our websites this data is stored for a suitable time to allow us to handle the request as appropriate, in compliance with GDPR (www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation). 

You may read our Privacy Policy for more information.

Essential website cookies are necessary for our online services to operate securely. Without these cookies, you will not be able to use our online services.

Customisation cookies enable certain functionality and accessibility. You may disable these but this will affect your ability to be able to use our website.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please therefore revisit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.