ICICI Bank says 17,000 credit cards mapped to wrong users, no misuse reported

ICICI Bank on Thursday said nearly 17,000 credit cards issued recently have been erroneously mapped to the wrong users in digital channels.

The second largest private sector lender, however, said that no instances of any misuse have been reported because of the error, and also promised to compensate users for any financial loss.

"It has come to our notice that about 17,000 new credit cards, which were issued in the past few days were erroneously mapped in our digital channels to the wrong users," a bank spokesperson said in a statement.

There has been social media chatter about the error since last evening, and the same has been rectified now.

An old user was apparently able to get a look into a newly-acquired credit card customer's details because of the wrongful mapping, but the reverse was not possible.

According to some experts, chances of transactions having gone through are rare because any Indian online website will ask for the one-time password to be sent to the newly acquired customer's mobile phone.

The ICICI spokesperson underlined that the impacted cards constitute only 0.1 per cent of its cards portfolio, and added that all the cards have been blocked. The customers will get new cards.

"No instance of misuse of a card from this set has been reported to us. However, we assure that the bank will appropriately compensate a customer in case of any financial loss," the statement said.

The discovery comes at a time when the regulator has been acting sternly against players for any lapses and put severe business restrictions on peer Kotak Mahindra Bank on Wednesday.