Australia’s banks will announce a joint effort to tackle a rise in scams and prevent customers from being victims of cybercrime.
Australian banks will introduce sweeping changes to their procedures today in a bid to “significantly” protect customers against scams.
The “Scam-Safe Accord” initiative will include six measures including limiting payments to high-risk channels and·alerting customers to potential scam payments.
The accord outlines six initiatives our banks have agreed to implement to improve their scam protection measures:
- An industry-wide confirmation of payee solution
- Biometric checks to prevent misuse of bank accounts
- Warnings and payment delays to alert customers to potential scam payments
- A major expansion of intelligence sharing across the sector
- Limiting payments to high-risk channels
- Implementing an Anti-Scams Strategy
Some banks have already implemented some of these initiatives, including Westpac, which will introduce real-time payment prompts in the next few months that will ask its customers a series of questions for payments it detects to be at a higher scam risk.
“While we’ve seen the considerable impact these measures have had in preventing losses, we know we cannot do it alone,” Westpac CEO and chair of the ABA, Peter King said.
“The action plan will help level the playing field and ensure customers are afforded the same protections no matter who they choose to bank with.
“But banks are still only one link in the chain. We now also need to think about how we apply this same level of protection to every mobile phone, every web browser and every social media page in the country to be as effective as possible and ensure Australia is a hard target for scammers.”
Every Australian opening a new bank account will also be subjected to confirmation of payee solution technology, which allows an account name to be checked when initiating or collecting a payment.
The Australian Banking Association (ABA) and Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) led the initiative.
Westpac chief executive Peter King said it was a significant step forward in protecting Australians.
”Falling victim to a scam can have devastating and life-changing consequences,” he said.
“Today we are sending a clear message to these criminals that they have no business being in Australia and we are doing more to stop them from ripping off our customers.”
King said the initiative would be one of the biggest technical uplifts for Australian banking in recent times.
”(It) means Australians with bank accounts will be significantly more protected from scams,” he said.
“Westpac has continued to invest in uplifting its scam detection and prevention measures which has stopped customers losing $235 million in the last year and sees us now detecting over 60 per cent of all cases.”
Other measures included in the initiative include biometric checks to prevent misuse of bank accounts,expanding intelligence sharing across the sector and implementing an Anti-Scams Strategy
Australians have already lost close to $430 million to scams this year.
