News

St.George Bank account statement error

• The incorrect statement information sent to some customers contains information such as transaction details and, in a small proportion of cases, account details that belong to another customer.
• Although incorrect information is on the paper statements, actual account balances, data and transactions are correct.
• Customers can still access their correct account details via ATMs, phone, online or at St.George Bank branches.
• Only bank statements with an end date of 26 February 2010 are affected.

St.George is currently re-issuing the correct statements with an explanatory letter and has set up a dedicated help line 1300 668 460 - for customers to call if they have any concerns. Customers should destroy any incorrect statement received.

St.George has well established and highly sophisticated security measures in place to prevent customer accounts being inappropriately accessed at any time. However in light of this incident, St.George has today implemented heightened security measures on any potentially impacted accounts. Importantly, the incorrect statements do not include another customer&rsquos PIN number.

Greg Bartlett, St.George Chief Executive said today:

&quotWe sincerely apologise to our customers for this error. This incident is totally unacceptable and we are treating it very seriously. I am overseeing this matter personally and we are committed to contacting each impacted customer," Mr Bartlett said.

"Our statement production company Salmat has acknowledged responsibility for the error which occurred and is currently completing a full investigation. They have already put in place stringent measures to ensure this incident does not re-occur. St.George will ensure the matter is properly investigated and rectified."

"What is most important to me though, is for our customers to be assured that we guarantee they will not incur any loss as a result of this error."

Salmat, a Sydney-based specialist statement production company today stated that a processingerror caused a one-off interruption to an automated data processing function on 26th February. They advised that human error occurred when manually re-starting an automated production process and is isolated to that processing run.

Salmat have sincerely apologised to St.George for the concern and inconvenience that this incident has caused their customers.

St.George has confirmed there were 42,000 account statements in the affected production run.