HSBC bank pledges security upgrade

Embarrassed by the theft of account data of thousands of clients, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA said it is spending 100 million francs to improve its security.

The bank issued an apology on Thursday over the client data, stolen by a former IT employee three years ago and passed on to the French government.

It said details of 15,000 existing clients and an additional 9,000 former clients were involved in the theft.

"We deeply regret this situation and unreservedly apologise to our clients for this threat to their privacy," said Alexandre Zeller, CEO of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) in a statement issued at a press conference in Geneva on the bank’s website.

"We are determined to protect our clients’ interests and are taking every necessary measure to do so, actively contacting all our clients with Swiss-based accounts."

The Geneva-based subsidiary of the British banking giant said “no data compromised for any branches of the bank outside Switzerland.”