HSBC clients' bank data stolen

SOME 24,000 customers may have been affected by the theft of data from a Swiss branch of banking giant HSBC three years ago, Mr Alexandre Zeller, chief executive of HSBC Private Bank, said on Thursday.

HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland) said 9,000 of them had since changed banks, leaving 15,000 of its remaining customers concerned by the leak.

The bank apologised to its clients in a statement and revealed that it was only just coming to understand the full extent of the theft by an employee who leaked secret data to French tax authorities last year.

'It is now clear that the theft, which was carried out by an employee of the IT department about three years ago, could concern about 15,000 current clients whose accounts were opened in Switzerland before October 2006,' Mr Zeller said. HSBC Private Bank said that was equivalent to less than a fifth of its current customers.

The theft triggered a brief spat between Switzerland and France last year after French authorities recovered the data from former employee Herve Falciani to probe suspected evasion by French taxpayers with secret Swiss accounts.

HSBC insisted that client data in the bank's branches outside Switzerland or other parts of the banking group were not affected because of distinct computer and security systems.

- Indian Journalist.