There has been much media coverage recently, with regards to a string of serious blunders by high profile financial institutions in the UK. The BBC’s Watchdog programme was one of the first to report how two of the countries leading Banks were carelessly leaving sensitive consumer information in dumpsters, at the back of their branches.
In light of these findings, consumer watchdogs have placed considerable pressure on organisations that deal in sensitive financial information, to employ stricter routines to prevent such incidents from happening. However, it has recently been reported that yet another of the UK’s leading credit firms has also made a sizeable error, which could potentially harm their customer’s interests.
HBOS Plc is one of the largest financial service’s companies in the country. It provides both businesses and consumers with an array of financial products ranging from loans and mortgages to insurance and investment services.
HBOS has recently revealed that a CD ROM containing just shy of 70,000 of its home Loan customers personal details, had gone missing. It is believed that the disc was infiltrated from the post, whilst making its way to a credit reference agency and is said to have contained bank account details, home addresses, DOB ECT. It has also been revealed that the usual technical procedures that would have been used, to ensure that such data would be worthless if obtained by the wrong sought of people, was not employed on this occasion.
The bank has admitted to making a major error and assured its customers that everything was being done to ensure their interests would be protected. However, it has been reported, that the number of consumers already reporting fraudulent activity had rose, although there is no evidence to prove the cases are linked.
In today’s online, security conscious society, there are very few reasons that can be used, to justify incidents such as these. It would appear that major financial institutions are in dire need of an overhaul with regards to their security procedures, and no doubt such happenings will spur the much-needed change. Its just seems a shame that it takes blunders such as these, to make such firms sit up and take action.
