FCA to investigate Equifax data breach

Earlier this month Nicky Morgan, Chair of the Treasury Committee, wrote to FCA Chief Executive Andrew Bailey, asking for his views on the data breach.

During the cyber-security breach, the personal information of up to 400,000 UK customers was potentially accessed.

Last month US parent company Equifax Inc. announced that a file containing UK consumer information "may potentially have been accessed" due to a process failure, corrected in 2016, which led to a limited amount of UK data being stored in the US between 2011 and 2016.

Morgan asked for Bailey's assessment of Equifax’s response to the incident, and whether the FCA is considering further action.

She said: "I understand that Equifax Limited is authorised by the FCA as a credit reference agency and a credit broker, and that as such, it must comply with the FCA's principles for businsesses."

Morgan asked Bailey to reveal when Equifax first notified the FCA of the breach, whether the FCA is satisfied that Equifax has identified all UK individuals affected and in a suitable timescale, and whether it believes "principles, rules or threshold conditions for authorisation may potentially have been breached".

She also asked whether there were implications for enforcement options or a consumer redress scheme to compensate affected individuals.

Commenting today, Morgan said: “Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK have been affected by the Equifax data breach. The FCA is right to investigate the circumstances surrounding it.

“The Treasury Committee will examine this further when it takes evidence from the FCA on 31 October.”