Standard Chartered has suffered a breach of data security in Asia with a hacker accessing the bank statements of hundreds of its wealthy clients.
The bank revealed that police and regulators in Singapore are investigating the theft of 647 of its private bank clients' monthly bank statements for February. Police told the bank that the theft occurred through one of the servers at Fuji Xerox, the Japanese IT company that prints statements for the bank's private clients.
The bank said it had "not found any unauthorised transactions resulting from this incident".
The incident comes as a blow to the bank in Asia, its largest market, where it is jostling to manage the wealth of a new generation of entrepreneurs. Confidentiality is a cornerstone of private banks' ability to compete for business in the Asian city state.
StanChart this week warned of its first fall in profit for a decade due to weakness in its financial markets business and deepening woes at its Korean unit in the final quarter of the year.
Ray Ferguson, chief executive for Singapore at Standard Chartered, said: "The confidentiality and privacy of our clients are of paramount importance to us, and we take this incident very seriously.
"Customer data protection is our responsibility and we sincerely apologise to all our customers and specifically to our private bank clients who have been affected."
Bert Wong, chief executive of Fuji Xerox Singapore said there had been "unauthorised access" by a third party to a server used for the private banking clients in a printing facility.
"We share the bank's concerns on the theft of information on this system, and deeply regret the incident," he said, adding that this was the first time such an incident had occurred since Fuji Xerox started doing business in Singapore in 1965.
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>A forensic team was also conducting a "thorough review".The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it was "actively engaging" the bank on the theft, which had "not compromised the bank's own IT systems or infrastructure".
However it added: "We will review [StanChart's] investigation report and consider if regulatory action against the bank is warranted."
Funds managed in Singapore rose 22 per cent to S$1.63tn ($1.29tn), from S$1.34tn a year previously, the MAS said in July. In comparison, there were SFr2.8tn ($2.9tn) of assets under management in Switzerland last year, according to the Swiss Bankers Association.
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