A Costly Breakup: Bank Worker Banned for Snooping on Ex’s Account 400+ Times

In a stark lesson on the boundaries of trust and privacy, a former FirstRand Bank employee has been permanently barred from the financial services industry for a severe and repeated abuse of her position. Her transgression? Illicitly accessing her ex-boyfriend’s private bank account over four hundred times.

The Financial Services Tribunal (FST) upheld the bank’s decision to debar the woman, solidifying the end of her career in finance. The ruling concluded that she no longer met the critical “fit and proper” person requirement, a cornerstone of the industry, after she conducted herself in a manner that “lacked honesty, integrity and good standing.”

A Pattern of Unauthorized Snooping

The case revealed a disturbing pattern of unauthorized access. The bank’s investigation found that the woman had not only accessed her ex-boyfriend’s account but had also looked into the accounts of other family members. In total, she was accused of pulling up private client information without permission at least 417 times.

This was not a one-off moment of poor judgment, but a sustained campaign of privacy invasion, using her professional access to peer into the financial lives of those she knew personally.

A Flimsy Defense Dismissed

In a final attempt to salvage her career, the woman took her case to the Financial Services Tribunal. She did not dispute the core fact that she accessed the accounts. Instead, she presented a defense that the Tribunal found wholly “improbable.”

She argued that the staggering number of access points was misleading, representing “multiple instances of the same conduct.” More crucially, she claimed her ex-boyfriend had actually authorized her to access his account and that it was not for a “private purpose.”

The Tribunal was having none of it. It deemed her explanations unlikely and found no reason to believe her former partner had given such permission. The exact number of accesses was deemed irrelevant; the repeated, unauthorized nature of the act was the central issue.

A Final Verdict on Integrity

The FST’s ruling was unequivocal. Her actions were a clear violation of both the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act and her employer’s internal policies. This demonstrated a fundamental lack of the integrity required to work in a sector built on client confidentiality.

By dismissing her application, the Tribunal sent a powerful message: the privilege of accessing sensitive financial data is not to be taken lightly. For this former employee, the fallout from a personal relationship has resulted in a professional death sentence, a permanent reminder that in the world of finance, trust is the most valuable currency of all.

{Source: IOL}

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