HSBC, the UK's biggest bank, has apologised to customers after losing the personal details of 370,000 people.

The bank said a computer disk had gone missing after it was couriered from one of its offices in Southampton en-route to another office.

The bank has informed the Financial Services Authority, the financial regulator, about the loss of the data.

The disk contains names of HSBC insurance customers and in some cases personal details such as dates of birth or whether the customer smoked.

However the disk, which is password protected, does not contain information such as addresses or bank account details.

This will make it difficult for criminals to use the personal details to commit identity fraud, which is one of the fastest growing crimes.

HSBC said in a statement: "The data disk lost by HSBC contains no address or bank account details for any customer and would therefore be of very limited, if any, use to criminals. The data, which was password-protected, includes names, life insurance cover levels, dates of birth and whether or not a customer smokes."

It added: "There is nothing else that could in any way compromise a customer and there is no reason to suppose that the disk has fallen into the wrong hands."

This is the first time that HSBC has lost data and the bank has apologised to customers for any concern this may cause them. It will contact each affected customer and has launched an investigation.

The incident is the latest in a series of incidents where data has gone missing from banks and government departments.

Last November, the government admitted it had lost two CDs containing details of 25m child benefit records.

Another UK bank HBOS was forced to apologise to more than 60,000 mortgage customers last June after private information about them was lost in the post.

Bank of Scotland, which is part of HBOS, had sent a computer disc containing names, addresses and dates of birth through the post to a credit reference agency.

The disc, which also contained mortgage account numbers, had been supposed to go through a secure system but was accidentally sent by conventional mail.

The FSA takes any loss of data seriously. Last year it fined Nationwide, the building society, �980,000 for lapses in information security procedures after a laptop containing sensitive customer information was stolen from an employee's home.

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