BANKING giant HSBC has lost a computer disk containing details of nearly 400,000 customers, it said yesterday.
The disk contains the names, dates of birth and insurance cover levels of 370,000 people who hold life assurance policies at the bank.
"The data disk lost by HSBC contains no address or bank account details for any customer and would therefore be of very limited, if any, use to criminals," it said in a statement.
The data was password-protected, it added.
The disk went missing, it said, after being sent via Royal Mail courier from the group's offices in Southampton to the reinsurer Swiss Re at the beginning of February.
It is not clear at what stage of the journey the disk went missing.
"It has got lost between A and B," said HSBC spokesman James Thorpe.
Normally such data is passed by wire link, but it was not working the day the disk was sent. HSBC said the reinsurer is carrying out a search.
The bank has informed the city watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, which may carry out an investigation. If it finds HSBC guilty of lax security, it could face a fine.
Norwich Union Life, one of Britain's largest life insurers, was fined 1.26 million pounds (US$2.52 million) by the FSA last December for exposing its customers to the risk of fraud.
Major weaknesses in its systems and controls allowed fraudsters to impersonate customers and obtain sensitive details from its call centers.