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CBA customers will be pleased to hear that the bank has “cut scam losses for CommBank customers in half” over the last financial year through anti-scam measures.
Collaboration with telcos and other banks has helped to promote cyber security. One system is the NameCheck technology which, according to CBA, is “a security tool that searches the account details you’ve entered when making a first-time payment in NetBank, the CommBank app or CommBiz. Based on our available payment data, NameCheck will then indicate whether the account details look right. For example, if we’ve never seen an account name used for a particular BSB and account number, we’ll prompt you to take further steps to help ensure you’re paying the intended recipient”.
It’s reported that this feature has saved $370 million over the year to June 2024. James Roberts, CommBank general manager of group fraud, said: “Over the last financial year, CommBank has continued to add market-leading, anti-scam technologies to protect Australians while collaborating across industry – including with other banks and telcos Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone.
“CommBank’s anti-scam initiatives are having a meaningful impact. CommBank customer scam losses halved compared to the previous financial year, with CommBank NameCheck technology preventing scam payments worth more than an estimated $40 million. NameCheck also stopped over $370 million in mistaken payments in the year to June 2024.
“Whilst this is encouraging, we acknowledge that Australians continue to lose money to scams and banks will continue to do more and, importantly, telecommunications and social media platforms need to step-up, to further suppress consumer losses,” Roberts said.
Now, CBA is urging banks and telco providers to work together to help mitigate scam losses for Aussie consumers.
Thankfully, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), financial crime has seen a 13.1 per cent decline in reported losses to $2.74 billion in 2023. However, this is still a substantial figure, highlighting just how much work there is to be done.
The anti-scam intelligence loop is another measure being implemented to help reduce losses. The innovation allows for banks, telecommunications networks, internet service providers and social media companies to share information on scams between themselves – enabling faster action and greater protections.
“Information shared through the intel loop can be used to protect customers. It is critical we have as many participants sharing actionable intelligence as soon as possible. Only by working together we can stop criminals here and overseas in their tracks,” Roberts said.
Scam reports have seen a substantial increase in recent years, with 601,000 made in 2023, an 18.5 per cent increase from 2022. In terms of financial losses, investment scams continued to cause the most harm ($1.3 billion), followed by remote access scams ($256 million) and romance scams ($201.1 million).
In 2023, the highest reported scam losses were where contact occurred via a phone call, via social media or via an email, said CBA.
“Most scams originate outside of the regulated banking system – phone calls with scammers, fake investment ads on social, and SMSs and emails with dodgy links are all ways scammers make contact. This requires a whole-of-ecosystem response from big tech, telcos and banks, focused on the source of scams,” Roberts said.
“Helping customers stay safe by improving early detection and prevention is among CommBank’s highest priorities. Our focus remains on further reducing customer scam losses and volumes while collaborating cross-industry, so, together, we can make Australia less attractive for scammers.”
[Related: Westpac and Optus team up to mitigate scams]
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