NongHyup Bank’s lax handling of customers’ private information was hit by controversy again, only three months after the March 20 hacking fiasco involving its customer database, sources said Wednesday.

One of the bank’s local branches allegedly violated the regulation on the safe disposal of customer information, leaking about 10,000 customers’ personal data on June 15.

The branch officials handed over the documents to secondhand dealers who collect street waste and re-sell it to recycling companies.

In principle, banks’ customer data are rated confidential, and therefore are sent to professional data disposal companies after a validation period for complete destruction.

The “waste collector controversy” is seen as an unprecedented case of undervaluing customers’ private information.

The leaked information was destroyed eventually, without reaching shady personal information traffickers, sources said. However, the leak put the already-troubled bank into an even more difficult position, as the Financial Supervisory Service is dealing out blame on institutions that undermine financial security.

“The financial watchdog is particularly unhappy about NongHyup’s continued data leaks,” sources said. “NongHyup has gone too far to get away with mere institutional caution,” they said, as its poor management of customer data reached public attention nationwide.

After the FSS finished the special probe on NongHyup’s first hacking incident in 2011, it told the bank to improve its financial security environment by setting up multiple electronic network servers, which the bank did not carry out.

Now the angry watchdog is reportedly planning on turning in NongHyup as the next target, whose punishment will be finalized no later than July.

Since 2011, the bank’s online banking system has seen 2-4 electronic failures every year. Among them were two major hacking incidents, one on April 12, 2011, and the other on March 20, 2013, when the bank’s operation was paralyzed.

The most recent online operation failure occurred on April 11, when both online and mobile banking services crashed.

NongHyup Bank currently has about 20 million customers and manages about 230 trillion won ($200 billion) in assets.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)