Customers at Birmingham Midshires had £100,000 taken from their accounts after one of its call centre workers stole their personal details, a court heard.

Ivan Obita, aged 37, tricked a caller into giving him his password and also passed other information on to accomplices who would pose as genuine customers and ask for cash to be moved into other accounts, it is alleged.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how Obita, who had worked at the bank for a year as a customer service agent, handled hundreds of calls every day.

One customer, Peter Hughes, got through to Obita when he phoned BM to move his account to one with a better interest rate.

He asked Mr Hughes for the seventh letter of his password, but as it only contained six letters, Obita asked him for a new password and reset it for him.

Obita claims the computer prompted him to ask for a seventh letter.

Three days later records showed the married father-of-one logged into Mr Hughes’ account again despite having no reason to.

Obita also accessed other customers’ accounts days after speaking to them and without any reason, it was said. Four customers fell victim to attempts to transfer funds from their account following calls from imposters on Obita’s days off.

In total, around £100,000 was transferred, it is said.

Miss Jane Sarginson, prosecuting, said imposters would call after being passed details of the customers, who Obita had dealt with and arrange for money to be transferred.

Obita claimed he left his own password  on his desk and others could have logged in to accounts using them. He said: “I’ve got no idea how any of this happened.”

Obita, who now works for Moss Bros in Birmingham and lives in Havlock Road, Aston, denies 10 charges relating to unauthorised access to a computer system and dishonestly accessing information in 2007.

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdicts today.