Card, capital firms face scrutiny

The Financial Supervisory Service plans to launch an on-the-spot probe soon into the credit card and capital services industries amid a series of financial accidents involving customer information leaks among loan issuance firms.

The action comes after a great amount of personal information was leaked at Samsung Card and Hana SK Card last month.

The FSS has ordered all credit card and capital services companies to submit their internal controlling situations and measures to block information leaks.

Based on their reports, the financial regulator will dispatch inspectors to the headquarters of companies in weaker states for their internal cyber security.

Regulatory officials pledged to issue tough sanctions in the coming full-fledged inquiry into the overall loan issuance sector.

Samsung Card had its personal information, including the names and mobile phone numbers of about 800,000 customers compromised in September.

Samsung has been criticized for claiming in its initial report to the FSS and the police that information of about 18,000 customers was leaked, despite having secured a statement from an employee who said he had leaked data of about 800,000.

The regulator also said the leak in Hana SK Card would be of a far larger scale than reported by the credit card company.

“Hana SK Card said that the data of some 200 clients has been compromised in its initial report but our investigation into the case says the number is at least 90,000,” an FSS official said.

Regulatory inspectors recently carried out on-the-spot inquiries into Samsung Card and Hana SK Card. The FSS plans to take punitive action on the two card issuers by holding a meeting of the Sanction Review Committee in the coming weeks.

In similar cases, Hyundai Capital and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, were warned by the FSS.

The two financial companies have come under intensive regulatory investigations for incurring a critical glitch in their network systems and leaking customer information in April.

Though regulators had pledged to conduct tougher oversight of electronic financing, incidents and accidents occurred steadily, including a case at Hyundai Securities in June.

A task force aimed at bolstering the security of the information technology sector in the financial industry has been formed in the FSS.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)