Decision-making and digital financial literacy skills are crucial in helping young Malaysians combat increasingly sophisticated scams.
Financial Industry Collective Outreach (Finco) chief executive officer Clare Walker said teaching about financial products alone is inadequate amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled scams.
Many of these scams succeed by exploiting how people make decisions, so financial literacy education must go beyond exposing students to digital financial services and tools, she noted.
“It’s not so much the technology itself that causes youngsters to fall prey to scammers. It’s because most lack ‘digital scepticism’ and active verification habits.
“In our Ringgit Rules lessons, we encourage students to ask simple but important questions before acting: Do I really need this? What’s influencing my decision? Have I verified the seller or opportunity?
“This helps build long-term resilience against increasingly sophisticated online scams that rely on manipulating consumer behaviour,” she said.
Walker also pointed to job scams targeting young adults as among the most worrying trends today.
“Many young people are looking for flexible or remote work, and scammers are exploiting that demand,” she said, adding that scammers use realistic job advertisements, fake freelance platforms and convincing communication to gain victims’ trust before asking them to pay for training materials, registration fees or cryptocurrency wallets.
“By the time victims realise they have been deceived, their money is often gone,” she said.
Citing Royal Malaysia Police data, she said part-time job scams alone resulted in RM31.8mil in losses in the first quarter of this year.
Beyond job scams, Walker said syndicates are also recruiting young people as money mules, exposing them to serious legal consequences.
She cited Finco’s 2023 Money SENSE: Malaysian Students’ Grasp of Financial Matters report, which found that some 4% of the 1,121 upper secondary school students surveyed had either shared their bank account details with close friends or would consider sharing them with strangers in exchange for quick cash.
“Because many young Malaysians maintain a public social media presence and may be more likely to make impulse digital spending, bad actors can easily identify their shopping habits and personal interests,” she said.
Walker said schools and higher education institutions should integrate AI literacy, critical thinking and personal data protection into existing curricula, while assessments should place greater emphasis on problem-solving and applying knowledge.
“Educators play a pivotal role and need to be equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to guide students in the ethical use of AI as a support for learning. This ensures they maintain academic integrity while leveraging technology creatively, hands-on activities, personal reflection, and the creation of concrete action plans,” she concluded.
