In Canada, there are "5 Big Banks": Toronto-Dominon (TD), Royal Bank (RBC), ScotiaBank, Candian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and Bank of Montreal (BOM). They earn *HUGE* profits every quarter in the near-billion to billions range. You'd think they could spend a little on security...

Apparently not in CIBC's case.. errr.. cases.

Case 1:

Source: The Province

Fax to CIBC: fix the problem, not the blame

The Province

December 2, 2004


The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce shouldn't be surprised if a last minute letter published in newspapers yesterday fails to restore its customers' and the public's trust.

CEO John Hunkin's mea culpa, if that's what it is, appeared only after the bank had been repeatedly and publicly chastised for its bullying response to a serious, possibly unlawful breach of clients' rights.

Indeed, his note has the scent of corporate damage control should these customers take legal action.

In case readers haven't heard; staff from some of the 1,100 CIBC branches of Canada's third largest bank had been faxing a West Virginia, U.S. scrap dealer the confidential financial files of some of its eight million clients.

It was a simple employee error -- likely the press of a wrong button -- but scrapyard owner Wade Peer couldn't get CIBC to look into it, despite trying for three years. That is, until a newspaper broke the story, at which time the bank hastily banned fax use for sending customer data and launched aggressive court action against Peer, claiming he leaked confidential client data and violated our strict privacy laws. Isn't that just what CIBC did? Blaming the messenger -- a smalltime entrepreneur at that -- will only further undermine what little trust Canadians have in corporations that insist on knowing every detail of our lives. Let this be a message, not just to CIBC but to all financial institutions, that they'd better strengthen the safeguards they were trusted to implement to protect the privacy of clients.
Original Story

Morons! They try to blame him and accuse him of violating their clients privacy. When they violated it in the first place by not having proper procedures in place to ensure that faxes were received! How hard is this!?

Case 2:

Source: CBC Montreal

ATM gives customers Canadian Tire money
Last Updated Thu, 02 Dec 2004 08:54:19 EST

MONCTON - A CIBC cash machine started dispensing Canadian Tire money at a mall outside of Moncton, N.B.

Kayla Peters, 16, said she was shocked when she withdrew $60 on Nov. 29. She received two $20 bills and two $2 bills in Canadian Tire money.
The ATM spat out Canadian Tire bills ranging from 10 cents to $2.

"I just stood there for a second wondering what I should do, but then I heard some other people talking about it and it turned out I wasn't the only one."

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce officials say four people have been reimbursed for the mistake.

"It clearly must have come in from maybe some of our business customers who package up their own cash," said Rob McLeod, spokesperson for the bank. "We're still tracking down exactly what the source was."

McLeod says CIBC has confiscated the fake money as part of its investigation.

The ATM spat out 11 Canadian Tire bills in denominations ranging from 10 cents to $2.

"It appears to be a very isolated incident," said McLeod.

It's the second recent embarrassment to involve CIBC. Last week, a junkyard owner in West Virginia revealed he was suing CIBC because it failed to stop faxing him private financial information about its clients.

The bank said it knew about the problem and thought it had been fixed in 2002. CIBC has ordered its employees to stop using the bank's internal fax system to send customer information between offices.

Written by CBC News Online staff
In case you are unaware, Canadian Tire, a long-time institution in Canada, gives back customers (who pay cash or with debit cards) Canadian Tire money that can be used towards purchases. They have been doing this for years. In fact, older versions of the money are collectible and worth more than the "face value".

What both of these highlight is the need for CIBC to get off it's fat profit duff and get back to simple basics: employ procedures that have to be followed. e.g., when sending a fax, verify that the sender received it. If not, check the number in the machine and report as to where it went to and have the number reprogrammed. Do a followup to ensure it's fixed.

In the money situation, I'm rather surprised that technology isn't employed to verify that deposits are legitimate and that money deposited isn't counterfeit. There are machines that can do this and technology can be employed very well to do this.

Sigh. I know who I WON'T be banking with in the near future...