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Bank fined over fraud crimes concern

Published on 24 Jul 2009 under category: legal

A major bank has been fined by a watchdog over concerns regarding fraud crimes.

Three HSBC companies have been hit with penalties which come to a total of £3.2 million by the City regulator.

These relate to concerns of identity fraud crimes, with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) revealing that HSBC Life lost a CD with unencrypted data on 180,000 members.

Meanwhile, HSBC Actuaries is understood to have lost information on 2,000 of its pension service users, while HSBC Insurance has been hit with an FSA fine.

Margaret Cole, enforcement director for the FSA, commented that these three firms "failed their customers by being careless with personal details".

She added: "It is also worrying that increasing awareness around the importance of keeping personal information safe, and the dangers of fraud, did not prompt the firms to do more to protect their customers' details."

Recently, England cricket star Kevin Pietersen was revealed by his spokesman as being the target of a Ponzi fraud crimes scheme.