By Chung Ah-young
About 80 officials, including former CEOs and executives, from three credit card firms face heavy penalties for the theft of customers' personal information, the financial regulator said Wednesday.
Former CEOs of the firms face heavy penalties equivalent to recommendations of dismissal, which means they will be banned from working for other financial firms for up to five years.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) will decide the level of punishment on the credit card firms themselves ― Kookmin, NongHyup and Lotte ― on July 17 at a disciplinary committee review meeting.
The watchdog originally planned to wrap up the sanctions on the data-theft case in June, but has postponed that as the reviews of the sanctions for KB Financial Group and Kookmin Bank continue.
The officials ― 30 from Kookmin, 20 each from Lotte and NongHyup ― were informed of their punishment in advance last month, including former KB Kookmin Card CEO Choi Gi-eui, NH NongHyup Card CEO Sohn Kyung-ik and Lotte Card CEO Park Sang-hoon.
The three companies were a major part of the massive theft of some 140 million customers' data which shocked the nation in January.
The largest-ever data-theft occurred when an employee from a personal credit ratings agency, the Korea Credit Bureau (KCB), was found to have stolen sensitive personal information, including resident registration numbers, bank account numbers and credit ratings.
Some 53 million pieces of data from Kookmin Card, 25 million from NongHyup Card and 26 million from Lotte Card were leaked.
The FSS will likely decide the punishment of KB Financial and Kookmin Bank on July 17. If KB Financial Chairman Lim Young-rok and Kookmin Bank CEO Lee Kun-ho decide to put up a defense that day, it will take more time to reach a final decision, the regulator said.
"It is not certain when the decision on the level of sanctions on them will be made, given the significance," the official said.
Lim and Lee were involved in an internal dispute over a possible change of the online banking system from IBM's main frame system to a Unix-based one and other financial irregularities.
About 80 officials, including former CEOs and executives, from three credit card firms face heavy penalties for the theft of customers' personal information, the financial regulator said Wednesday.
Former CEOs of the firms face heavy penalties equivalent to recommendations of dismissal, which means they will be banned from working for other financial firms for up to five years.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) will decide the level of punishment on the credit card firms themselves ― Kookmin, NongHyup and Lotte ― on July 17 at a disciplinary committee review meeting.
The watchdog originally planned to wrap up the sanctions on the data-theft case in June, but has postponed that as the reviews of the sanctions for KB Financial Group and Kookmin Bank continue.
The officials ― 30 from Kookmin, 20 each from Lotte and NongHyup ― were informed of their punishment in advance last month, including former KB Kookmin Card CEO Choi Gi-eui, NH NongHyup Card CEO Sohn Kyung-ik and Lotte Card CEO Park Sang-hoon.
The three companies were a major part of the massive theft of some 140 million customers' data which shocked the nation in January.
The largest-ever data-theft occurred when an employee from a personal credit ratings agency, the Korea Credit Bureau (KCB), was found to have stolen sensitive personal information, including resident registration numbers, bank account numbers and credit ratings.
Some 53 million pieces of data from Kookmin Card, 25 million from NongHyup Card and 26 million from Lotte Card were leaked.
The FSS will likely decide the punishment of KB Financial and Kookmin Bank on July 17. If KB Financial Chairman Lim Young-rok and Kookmin Bank CEO Lee Kun-ho decide to put up a defense that day, it will take more time to reach a final decision, the regulator said.
"It is not certain when the decision on the level of sanctions on them will be made, given the significance," the official said.
Lim and Lee were involved in an internal dispute over a possible change of the online banking system from IBM's main frame system to a Unix-based one and other financial irregularities.
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