Forum: Banks will keep refining safeguards to balance convenience and security
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We thank Mr Zhang Baoguang for his feedback and understand the concerns about delays in banks processing local fund transfers (“ Banks’ anti-fraud departments should do better and not hold up genuine transfers
We also thank Mr Tan Peng Boon for his suggestion for banks to exclude local transfers to customers’ own accounts from the new anti-scam safeguard (“ Exclude bank customers’ local transfers to own accounts elsewhere from anti-scam action
Scams are increasingly sophisticated and the depth of deception by scammers has led to many victims losing large amounts of savings. The enhanced fraud surveillance measure to delay payments from accounts which experienced a rapid draining of half the account balance was introduced as an additional safeguard against large value losses arising from scams. The 24-hour cooling period provides an opportunity for customers to reconsider large transactions and cancel them should they have doubts about whether they have been scammed.
Banks will continue to refine the measure over time, to achieve balance between convenience and security. Banks have whitelisted some categories of transactions that are not subject to the measure, such as recurrent GIRO payments and payments to billing organisations.
Expanding the whitelist requires careful consideration on the risk of exploitation by scammers. Banks have seen scams where sums are moved between customer’s own accounts before being dissipated. Additionally, banks do not have information to validate that an account in another financial institution is owned by the same customer. We seek customers’ understanding when some convenience needs to be forgone for security when undertaking large value funds transfers. We also encourage consumers to plan ahead for such transfers.
Banks, together with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, will continue to work together to safeguard customers’ hard-earned savings, and reduce the incidence of painful financial losses arising from scams.
Ong-Ang Ai Boon
Director
The Association of Banks in Singapore
Charlene Chew
Head (Corporate Communications)
Monetary Authority of Singapore
