HSBC employee steals details of Swiss private bank accounts

LONDON – A former HSBC employee has stolen the account data of 24,000 clients from its Geneva private bank, the UK bank has admitted.

Herve Falciani, formerly a computer specialist at HSBC, confessed to stealing client data from the bank before fleeing and passing it on to French tax authorities. The firm’s private banking unit said initially that less than 10 accounts were affected, but it has since apologised,  admitting the larger figure and saying 15,000 of the accounts are still active. The