KUALA LUMPUR: Special measures taken by financial institutions in recent months to counter unauthorised banking transactions commonly pulled off by scammers have borne fruit with commendable results.
Bank Negara governor Datuk Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said the introduction of measures such as restricting authentication apps to a single device and introducing a “kill switch” for bank clients to freeze their accounts when they became accessible to hackers or scammers has resulted in a steep decline of 58% in unauthorised banking transactions reported to the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) in the past five months.
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He said the NSRC, which was launched a year ago, has received over 19,000 reports on scam cases, which led to the identification of 43,000 mule bank account holders and the freezing of more than RM60mil.
“These early signs are very encouraging, and I trust we will see a further decline in cases as we go forward.
“As for the NSRC, I am pleased that efforts to take it to the next level are underway. Falling victim to financial fraud is undoubtedly difficult for those affected, with some victims losing their entire life savings and struggling to regain their economic footing,” said Abdul Rasheed during the launch of the 13th International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing (IFCTF) 2023 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here.
He said dealing with financial crimes demands integrity, which is the key to preserving public confidence and trust in the financial system.
Abdul Rasheed said whether the role is in prevention, supervision or enforcement, reporting institutions, regulators, supervisors, and law enforcement agencies alike must discharge their mandate with full integrity.
“As our economy continues to grow, we must remain vigilant against evolving threats. The five high-risk crimes – corruption, fraud, drug trafficking, smuggling and organised crimes – that were identified in the National Risk Assessment (NRA) 2020 will continue to be our focus.
“However, given the evolving landscape, we have commenced a renewed risk assessment and will share our findings in the first half of 2024,” he said.
Also present at the event was Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers (AICB) chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim.
In a briefing with the media at the event, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) commissioner (online harms and network security committee) Derek John Fernandez said the escalation of online crimes is a worldwide trend and a result of digitalisation.
He said online criminals are emboldened as they can remain anonymous and safe from even the long arm of the law with the use of sophisticated technology, some of military grade, to penetrate their targets and escape untraced.
He said between 2018 and August 2023, the MCMC blocked 2.5 billion phone calls on suspicion of being involved in crimes.
According to him, the commission disabled 4,000 phishing sites between 2020 and August 2023.
Derek said from 2021 to August 2022, 581 million SMSes were blocked, and 237,999 mobile and fixed phone lines linked to the suspicious messages had their services terminated.
He said for the same period, 70 million peer-to-peer SMSes with suspicious hyperlinks were also prevented from reaching its intended recipients.
Derek said, on the request of the police, the commission also shut down 29 websites suspected to be involved in cheating activities.
He said 7,754 social media accounts were also flagged, with action taken for impersonation.
“This is a small fraction of the problem. In reality, it is seven times bigger because most people do not report their cases. This is the challenge faced by the MCMC,” he said.
At the same event, the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) and the Association of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions of Malaysia (AIBIM) launched their anti-scam awareness campaign, #JanganKenaScam.
ABM chairman Datuk Khairusalleh Ramli said according to an industry survey on scam awareness for bank clients, nine out of 10 of them read scam alerts and were updated on the latest scam tactics, but only 60% of them felt they were prepared to counter the scams.
He said the survey also revealed that close to 80% of bank clients believe victims of scams exposed their banking credentials inadvertently to the fraudsters.
“To fight scammers, we need to learn their language. We hope that the experiential aspect of the #JanganKenaScam campaign, together with the introduction of the anti-scam resource centre at www.JanganKenaScam.com, can provide the public with an avenue that enables them to understand the manipulation techniques used by scammers in financial scams.
“They must be alert at all times and not share their banking information with anyone,” he said.
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