The Itoman branch of the Okinawa Kaiho Bank has admitted losing money transfer request forms from 576 of its customers that were submitted over a period of three months from January to March 2010. The bank is required by law to store the transfer request forms for 10 years.

The bank branch announced the loss of the forms on Sep. 11. The forms contain private information, such as the customer’s name, phone number, the receiving bank’s name, account number and amount of money.

The bank has said it’s likely they have disposed of the forms by mistake. The loss was discovered when the bank was asked to turn in the forms for a tax audit by the National Tax Agency in January this year. Although the bank had searched for the documents in its office, it could not locate them.

Bank officials say they have not received any inquiries from their customers or third parties regarding the forms, and there have been no false claims, thus, they say, there’s a very low possibility that the forms have ended in wrong hands.

• 
• NO DATA