- Commonwealth Bank executive admitted it should’ve told customers of data loss
- Two magnetic tapes had details of 19.8 million bank accounts from 2000 to 2016
- Angus Sullivan said it was wrong of the bank to withhold information from public
A senior Commonwealth Bank executive has admitted it should have told its customers details of 20 million accounts had been lost rather than waiting for two years.
Australia’s biggest bank in May 2016 lost confidential details containing the names, addresses and transaction histories of its customers spanning 16 years.
Two magnetic tape drives containing the details of 19.8 million accounts were put on to a truck to be destroyed at a secure destruction centre but what happened remained a mystery.
A senior Commonwealth Bank executive has admitted it should have told its customers details of 20 million accounts had been lost rather than waiting for two years
Australia’s biggest bank in May 2016 lost confidential details containing the names, addresses and transaction histories of its customers spanning 16 years
The Commonwealth Bank had hired subcontractor Fuji Xerox to store confidential customer data covering 2000 to 2016.
Angus Sullivan, the Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager of retail sales and service, admitted it should have told customers two years ago.
‘With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps it would have been better for us to have communicated it,’ he told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Thursday.
The senior bank executive said an internal investigation involving forensic experts was undertaken.
Two magnetic tape drives containing the details of 19.8 million accounts were put on to a truck to be destroyed at a secure destruction centre but that truck never arrived (stock image)
He added the banking regulators had not advised them to go public, but didn’t name the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
‘The feedback from them at the time was that no further steps were required from their side and, on the balance of all of that, obviously weighing up the need for transparency and desiring not to cause undue concern for customers, we decided the most appropriate course of action was to not communicate it,’ Mr Sullivan said.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority this week said that community trust in Australia’s banks had been ‘badly eroded’ and CBA had failed to meet expectations and ‘fallen from grace’.
While the fate of the 19.8 million account details remained a mystery, Angus Sullivan an internal investigation concluded ‘they were most likely destroyed’.
The Commonwealth Bank had hired subcontractor Fuji Xerox to store confidential customer data covering 2000 to 2016
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