Lloyds Banking Group has paid £139,000 in compensation after a software glitch exposed the personal data of nearly 500,000 customers. The incident, which occurred on 12 March, left account details, payment references and national insurance numbers visible to other users of the bank's mobile apps.
In a letter published by the Treasury select committee, Lloyds blamed the glitch on a software defect introduced during an IT update to its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland mobile banking apps. The bank said customers would have had to be looking at their app within 'small fractions of a second' of other users to access their details.
Up to 447,936 customers were potentially affected, with 114,182 clicking into transactions that revealed private information. Even non-customers may have had their transaction details exposed. Lloyds reported itself to the Financial Conduct Authority on the day of the glitch and notified the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours.
Jasjyot Singh, Lloyds' chief executive of consumer relationships, said there was no evidence of misuse or malicious activity, but asked customers who may have recorded or posted information to delete it. The bank has compensated 3,625 customers for distress and inconvenience, with no financial losses reported.
The incident raises questions about customer protections as banks close branches and push digital banking. Meg Hillier, Treasury committee chair, noted the trade-off between convenience and reliance on technology that can suffer errors. Lloyds will provide further updates to the committee in April and September.
