Bank fiasco

Friday, 28 July 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

I read with interest the several letters to the Editor in your esteemed and independent newspaper, on the subject of a terrible blooper by one of the largest private banks in the country. The incident seems incredibly idiotic considering the precautions, not only banks, but the whole financial industry takes today to protect data from outside threats, spending, maybe millions.

That is why this event is difficult to believe that the bank in question, which boasts of digital advancements if we are to believe paper notices, allowed such serious lapses in its basic IT security.

It will be interesting to see who will be the scapegoat ultimately, to get punished for a violation which may be not Sri Lanka’s but a world’s first from a reputed bank. Will it be the junior level staff, who had been handed down a weak system where with a press of a finger highly-confidential customer data could leak out?

I do not agree with the contention that the Board of the bank should resign as suggested by one of the writers but the punishment needs to be at a very senior level which made this happening possible, rather than at data operator level.

As a layman I can think of the person at the top of bank’s banking operations who had miserably failed to identify weaknesses in the system or the chap in charge of risk management or maybe the techies who would have provided a system with so much of loopholes in the security aspects for such sensitive information! Let’s wait and see.

Ranjan Kodituwakku