Moscow traders offering data on 3 mn people

MOSCOW, Dec 14: Moscow market traders are peddling copies of a credit database holding confidential information on 3 million people that media are describing as possibly the biggest leak in Russian banking history.

The banks named as sources, however, describe it as a fake, an enterprise that preys on a ferocious thirst for credit information in an economy fired by booming oil revenues.

At the Russian capital's sprawling indoor electronics market Gorbushka in the western suburbs a tall, bald Russian trader fishes out CD copies of the database from a case attached to his belt and sells them for 3,000 roubles (114 dollars).

''I've been selling them for a few months now,'' he tells Reuters. He declines to answer any more questions and disappears into the maze of stalls and kiosks.

The data describes the credit rating details, criminal records, addresses and telephone numbers of 3 million people.

''It's the biggest list to be leaked in Russian banking history,'' says Svetlana Dementeva, a reporter at the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant who has been writing about the data.

Personal data in Russia is often sold as a commodity.

For a few choice words to the right person and a wad of rouble banknotes you can buy lists of mobile phone numbers, tax declarations and car registrations.

But the 10 banks listed in the database deny the data is theirs and cast doubt on its authenticity.

BUY, BUY, BUY

''Impexbank certainly registers all clients who got approval for obtaining a banking product, as well as those refused,'' Impexbank, one of the banks listed in the data, says in a statement. ''(But) this information is ultra-confidential.'' ''Regarding the database that has appeared on the black market, we would like to note that neither the source of its origin nor reliability is known.'' Other banks say the information is unreliable because it contains data the banks would just not need.

''We don't trust this database,'' Emil Yusupov, head of retail products at Absolut Bank, says. ''The legal punishments of creditors and applicants and decisions made by courts are not needed (by banks).'' The apparent leak follows other data slips blamed on Russian banks this year which included similar lists of 700,000 people circulating around Moscow's markets in August.

A surge in oil prices over the last few years has boosted the Russian economy and glossy posters now urge the 146 million people living in Russia to borrow cash to buy new apartments, cars and household appliances.

But establishing a borrower's creditworthiness has been difficult.

Kommersant's Dementeva says the list looks like any other government or tax database. ''The list is mainly of use to businesses and companies which want to check people's credit ratings,'' she says.

Russians are already wary of handing out personal information and any data leak could act as a brake on the banks' own plans to expand their credit system.

REUTERS