Lloyds Banking Group has disclosed that an additional 80,500 customers may have had their financial details exposed in a data breach linked to an IT glitch on March 12. The banking group, which operates Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, previously reported that nearly half a million customers were impacted by the incident, which allowed users to see other people’s transactions when logging into their banking app.
The newly identified affected individuals are joint account holders who did not log in during the incident but whose transactions may have been viewed by others. Lloyds confirmed it has issued alerts on the app home screen to these customers, with a small number of exceptions based on individual circumstances. The bank stated: “In notifying these customers, our focus has been on providing reassurance and support.”
As of March 24, Lloyds has paid £201,000 in compensation to 5,250 people, alongside an additional £62,000 in “goodwill” payments to 1,625 customers. However, the bank stressed that it has not found any customers who have suffered financial loss as a result of the glitch, and therefore no compensation has been paid on that basis. Goodwill payments are made for distress and inconvenience in individual cases where there has been a direct impact.
The glitch, which occurred during an overnight IT update, was attributed to a software defect. Lloyds revised the number of customers initially affected after logging into the app to 446,915, down slightly from an earlier estimate of 447,936 due to duplication. It also confirmed that 107,937 people clicked on other users’ transactions, lower than the first estimate of 114,182, potentially exposing more detailed information such as account details, national insurance numbers and payment references.
Among those affected was Lauren Johnstone from Strathaven, South Lanarkshire, who was able to view salary details and child benefit payments belonging to another customer on the Bank of Scotland app. Donald MacLeod from Ullapool in the Highlands reported that his mother-in-law was impacted, and his wife could see incorrect names, account numbers and sort codes. Lloyds emphasised it has not seen an increase in daily fraud levels against impacted customers since the incident, and has not received complaints from customers of other banks whose data was also visible.
