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Bloomberg
Tesco Bank, the lending arm of the U.K.’s biggest grocer, said it’s spending 2.5 million pounds ($3.1 million) to reimburse customers who lost money during a wave of fraudulent account transactions over the weekend.
About 9,000 of the firm’s 136,000 checking-account clients fell victim and were fully reimbursed by Tuesday, the company said in a statement. The bank said it ended a temporary suspension of online transactions and that no personal data were compromised.
“Our first priority throughout this incident has been protecting and looking after our customers and we’d again like to apologize for the worry and inconvenience this issue has caused,†Tesco Bank Chief Executive Officer Benny Higgins said.
The subsidiary joined some of the world’s biggest financial institutions — including JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — in being targeted by cybercriminals in recent years. Still, the latest incident may be unprecedented and “requires further urgent analysis,†the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority’s CEO, Andrew Bailey, said.
The bank unit has about 7.8 million customer accounts across the U.K. Owners complained on its website of seeing amounts varying from 20 pounds to 600 pounds missing from their accounts. The firm suspended online debit transactions Monday, but let consumers access their money at cash machines or spend it at retailers.
The FCA has said it’s working with the bank on the matter.