FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Bank customers' personal data sold to credit card salespeople

Bank customers' personal data sold to credit card salespeople

A NETWORK OF credit card salespeople and bank employees in Jakarta have been trading the personal information of bank customers and credit card holders with each other in an effort to make quicker sales, as reported by Kompas daily in a recent investigation.

Personal information sold by the salespeople comprised a customer’s name, phone number, address and even their parents’ names.
Basic customer information, excluding their financial information, was sold for as low as 300 rupiah (US$0.21,Bt4.83) per piece of information. Personal information that included evidence of a customer’s financial health was typically sold for between 20,000 and 50,000 rupiah per piece of information.
 A credit card salesperson, identified only as RF, said last month that he had been selling the private information of 1,101 credit card holders compiled by a private bank between 2017 and 2018 for 350,000 rupiah, or around 318 rupiah per piece of infromation.
 “The information contains credit card holders’ personal data,” he said.
 The investigation confirmed the validity of the data, as a credit card holder whose private information was sold by the salespeople told Kompas that every piece of information – including her home and office addresses, date of birth, phone number and credit card number – was accurate.
 The source said her credit card was issued by a state-owned lender, not a private bank.
 A credit card sales coordinator at a bank in Central Jakarta, identified only as JS, said the selling of cardholders’ private information had been commonplace among bank employees.
 High-quality data, which includes information on cardholders’ salary and financial documents from Bank Indonesia and the Financial Services Authority (OJK), is typically sold for 1 million rupiah per 50 pieces of information, or 20,000 rupiah each, JS said.
 JS added that employees were sometimes compensated by the bank for giving away customers’ personal information. JS and other bank employees can earn up to 16 million rupiah for 30 to 40 platinum credit card approvals.
 However, not every piece of a customer’s personal information is “good”, according to JS.
 “Personal data that has been resold between multiple banks is largely regarded as garbage: it is usually sold online,” JS said.
 Personal data is sold online for as low as 0.1 rupiah per piece of information, as reported by Kompas.
 Indonesian Credit Card Association executive director, Steve Martha, said the recent sale of customers’ personal data was possibly part of an effort to attract new telemarketers.
 State-owned PT Bank Mandiri corporate secretary Rohan Hafas said the selling of personal information was a persistent issue in the industry. However, he went on to say that the selling was not caused by a leak from banks.
 OJK commissioner Heru Kristiyana said personal financial information of bank customers was protected by the constitution.
 

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