Following this announcement, the increased focus on protecting clients and users from scams is working, but CommBank mentions that there is more to do across big tech, telcos, banks, and financial institutions.
Over the last financial year, CommBank continued its process to add optimised anti-scam technologies to protect customers and clients in the region of Australia, while also collaborating across the industry, including with other banks and telcos such as Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone.
The company’s anti-scam initiatives are having a big impact, as its customer scam losses halved compared to the previous financial year. Its NameCheck technology prevented scam payments worth more than an estimated USD 40 million and stopped over USD 370 million in mistaken transactions from June 2024.
According to the press release, CommBank’s NameCheck technology was made available to more institutions in FY24, including Bendigo Bank, Liink by J.P.Morgan, and fraud monitoring company Satori, and is now used around 4 million times per month. The financial institution integrated into Australia’s new anti-scam intelligence loop, which made it faster to report and remove scams across big tech, banks, and telcos, with it recently submitting more than 1.500 entries containing scam phone numbers and URLs for blocking and takedown processes. At the same time, officials from the company called on all banks, telcos, and social media firms to urgently join the loop, as well as to do their part in order to optimise the process of protecting Australian customers and individuals. Information shared through the intel loop can also be used in order to protect clients.
With most scams originating outside of the regulated banking system, such as scam phone calls, fake investment ads on social media, or SMSs and emails with dodgy links, there is always the danger of customers contacting scammers. This requires a whole-of-ecosystem response from big tech, telcos, and banks, which are focused on the source of scams.
CommBank will also offer other features such as CallerCheck in order to help protect clients against bank impersonation scams so that users can verify it is the actual financial institution calling. In addition, it also provides CustomerCheck so CommBank can verify users in-branch, with these technologies being used several times respectively throughout FY24.
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