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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) have introduced new measures to bolster the security of digital banking, in view of the recent spate of SMS-phishing scams targeting bank customers.
The country’s financial institutions are due to work with the MAS over the next two weeks to create new standards that could reduce the risk of phishing scams that are being used to make Singaporean bank customers initiate authorised push payments (APP).
Recently, OCBC bank customers were hit by an SMS scam, leading to a public apology from the chief executive, Helen Wong, as well as an agreement to make goodwill payments to all who had been affected.
Now, all institutions are set to remove clickable links in emails and text messages sent to retail customers, in a move aimed at tackling a rise in phishing attacks that have plagued the city-state.
As well as removing links, the MAS also wants financial institutions to:
- Create a threshold for $100 or lower for funds transfer transaction notifications to customers to be set by default.
- Establish a delay of at least 12 hours before activation of a new soft token on a mobile device.
- Make banks send notifications to existing mobile numbers or emails registered with their customer whenever the latter requests to change of mobile number or email address.
- Set up additional safeguards, such as a cooling-off period before implementation of requests for key account changes such as in a customer’s key contact details.
- Ensure dedicated and well-resourced customer assistance teams to deal with feedback on potential fraud cases on a priority basis.
- Create more frequent scam education alerts.
Although the MAS concedes that this will lengthen the time taken for payments to be completed, it deems it necessary to ensure consumers are better protected.
“The threat of scams will not go away, but we can reduce our vulnerabilities. This requires a multi-pronged response across the ecosystem,” said Ravi Menon, the managing director at the MAS.
Meanwhile, the ABS has insisted that the banking industry will continue to strengthen consumer protection measures. “We also ask that the public stay vigilant given that scams continue to evolve and are executed quickly. We remain committed to upholding the confidence with which customers can transact online safely, while still maintaining a high level of service,” said ABS chair Wee Ee Cheong.
APP fraud is an issue that UK payments players know all too well, and it has caused a headache for regulators and institutions alike.
According to UK Finance, £355m was lost to APP scams in the first half of 2021, overtaking card fraud losses for the first time, and the issue has become so potent that it has reached the Houses of Parliament.
The UK’s Payments Systems Regulator is currently consulting on the issue, and the proposals that have been suggested by the regulator include the publication of fraud data by financial institutions, improving scam prevention tactics and reimbursing victims.
Some politicians and campaign groups have suggested that the voluntary reimbursements for APP fraud should be made a legal requirement.
