CNN-IBN

Bangalore, Jun 29: The HSBC BPO unit in Bangalore is a high-security zone. But this did not stop an employee with malicious intentions from leaking confidential data about account holders and siphoning-off £2,33,000 from the accounts of bank’s UK customers.

The bank has filed a complaint with the Corps of Detectives (CoD) against Nadeem Kashmiri who is accused of leaking confidential data about clients to his accomplices in the UK, after which about £2,30,000 pounds were siphoned off from 20 accounts.

On its part, HSBC says it is convinced that Nadeem Kashmiri is directly involved in the fraud.

His employment contract has been terminated since and crime reported to the Bangalore police.

Nadeem has already been arrested and he will be in police custody till July 4.

Twenty-four-year old Kashmiri is a Bangalorean who has studied till Class XI. He has also assisted his elder brother and father in their poultry farm.

He worked at Accenture for a month before joining HSBC.

"The internal security unit of the bank detected the fraud and on interrogating the accused, we'll get some more information," Inspector General, Economic Offences Wing CoD, Sushant Mahapatra says.

So how safe are your bank accounts? In HSBC’s case, the bank FIR says Kashmiri had got the job after submitting false documents.

So, while this is the first case of information security leak out of Bangalore, other BPOs and banks will increasingly come under the scanner.

"It is an alarming trend. It could affect the outsourcing trend, because the whole thing depends on image and credibility and that's getting eroded with these types of scams and it may affect foreign investment," Mahapatra says.

The CoD has asked all banks to tighten their security and HSBC has issued a statement that customer interests will not be compromised.