HSBC’s Private Bank Reports Data Theft on 15,000 Swiss Accounts
March 11, 2010, 7:44 AM ESTBy Dylan Griffiths and Warren Giles
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc’s Swiss private bank said it suffered “serious data theft” affecting about 15,000 Swiss-based accounts.
The data was stolen by a former information technology employee about three years ago, the Geneva-based unit of HSBC said today in a statement. French authorities, which seized the data, have told their Swiss counterparts that they won’t use the information “inappropriately,” the bank said.
“The bank does not believe that the stolen data has or will allow any third party to access any client account,” HSBC said in the statement. The accounts were all opened before October 2006, the bank said.
The willingness of governments to pay for stolen data is fanning tensions with France and Germany as Switzerland seeks to negotiate treaties implementing its commitment to cooperate with international tax probes. The Swiss government said in January it will draft a law barring officials from assisting foreign countries in cases involving theft of client details.
The French Finance Ministry said in December that it had data on Swiss bank accounts held by French taxpayers, including names provided by a former HSBC employee.
Switzerland suspended treaty negotiations with France in December because of the HSBC case. After talks in January, France agreed to return the original data to Switzerland and not ask for assistance from Swiss authorities based on the stolen information. France will continue to use the data to pursue tax evaders at home.
HSBC’s private bank said today that clients withdrew 4.1 billion Swiss francs ($3.8 billion) last year and made deposits with rivals offering higher interest rates.
“Our competitors continue to overpay on deposits to attract funds,” HSBC said. “We made a decision not to compete on rates, which helped secure our net interest income, but contributed to an outflow of deposits.”
--Editor: Frank Connelly
To contact the reporter on this story: Dylan Griffiths in Geneva at dgriffiths1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net
