By Lawrence White
LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) – Britain’s cross-party Treasury Committee has requested further explanation from Lloyds Banking Group over the causes of a glitch on March 12 that let some customers see other users’ transactions on the bank’s digital channels.
“On the face of it, this is an alarming breach of data confidentiality,” committee chair Meg Hillier wrote to Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn in a letter dated March 17.
“We’re very sorry this happened,” a spokesperson for Lloyds said. “No action is needed from customers and there was no issue with account security.”
Lloyds did not comment on how many customers were affected, and the extent to which their privacy or security could have been compromised by having their transactions displayed to other users.
Hillier asked Lloyds to provide details including the nature of the glitch, a timeline of its response, what personal information was inadvertently disclosed, and how it may compensate affected customers.
The incident comes amid wider scrutiny of the robustness of banks’ digital channels such as apps and websites, as lenders in Britain slash their physical branch networks to cut costs and shift customers online.
The Treasury Committee last year said that nine top UK banks and building societies had suffered at least 803 hours of unplanned technology and systems outages between January 2023 and February 2025, blocking millions of customers from accessing their cash.
(Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by Iain Withers and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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