Seoul: Lotte Card Co. has been notified by the financial watchdog of around 5 billion won (US$3.38 million) in financial penalties and a business suspension of over four months due to its massive data leak, informed sources said Thursday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) recently sent the prior notice to the credit card firm, with the penalties set to be finalized by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in the near future. The breach involved Lotte Card's online payment system, which was hacked last year, resulting in the leak of personal information of about 2.97 million customers.

It was also discovered that the company did not implement sufficient encryption measures for the log files, further complicating the situation. Earlier this month, the state data protection watchdog separately decided to impose a penalty of 9.62 billion won on Lotte Card.