Connecticut-based People's Bank has become the latest US financial firm to lose confidential data after a tape containing information on around 90,000 customers went missing while in transit to a credit reporting bureau.
The missing tape contains names, addresses, social security numbers and chequeing account numbers for about 90,000 customers, including bank employees, with a personal credit line - the overdraft protection associated with their personal chequeing account.
The bank says the tape was lost while being transported by third party courier UPS to the TransUnion credit reporting bureau. UPS has launched an investigation into the incident.
People's Bank says it has begun notifying customers and informing them of steps they can take to protect themselves. It says has no reason to believe that the data has been used inappropriately and has not received any reports of unauthorised activity.
Both CitiFinancial and ABN Amro "lost" customer data in similar incidents in the US last year.
In June CitiFinancial, the consumer finance subsidiary of Citigroup, reported that unencrypted tapes containing the personal financial data of 3.9 milllion customers had been lost by UPS while in transit to a credit bureau, while in December ABN Amro Mortgage Group - a US subsidiary of the Dutch bank - said a computer tape containing the confidential data for two million customers was lost while being transported by DHL to a credit bureau.
In February last year Bank of America said computer tapes containing charge card account information for 1.2 million government card holders were lost during transfer to a backup data centre.