Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. plans to send a ¥10,000 gift coupon to each of the 49,000 or so customers whose personal data was sold by a former executive to three data list dealers, company officials said Wednesday.
The brokerage arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. decided to offer the compensation after customers began complaining in mid-March that they were getting frequent calls from real estate firms and brokerages.
"Fully recognizing our responsibility and the gravity of the incident, we have decided to provide our customers with the gift certificate as a token of apology for the trouble we have caused them and will continue to cause them," President Fumiyuki Akikusa said at a news conference.
The company went public about the data leak in early April and fired the employee, who was deputy chief of the computer system department.
The former employee stole information on about 1.48 million customers and sold data on about 49,000 of them to the dealers. It was then resold and distributed to about 80 firms, according to MUFG.
Akikusa denied that the gift coupon is aimed at dissuading the customers from filing lawsuits against the brokerage.
"We have no intention of restraining our customers' actions, or to say that the matter has been fully settled," he said, adding that it will continue making every effort to recover the leaked information.
The brokerage said it will inform customers about the details of the gift certificate next week. The coupon, which will be sent by post, can be used to purchase items or stay at hotels, among other things, it said.
'Vaccine bond' launch
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. has started selling "vaccine bonds" to finance immunization projects for children in poor countries, following a similar offering by Daiwa Securities Group Inc. in February.
MUFG will accept individial orders until Wednesday.