KUALA LUMPUR: Financial institutions should extend the cooling-off period for transactions to up to 72 hours to combat online scams and fraud, says Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf (pic).
The Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department director stressed that banks must be serious in minimising and curbing scams via online transactions.
“One of the ways is to have a longer cooling-off period, perhaps 48 or 72 hours. While it may affect genuine business transactions initially, people will adapt over time,” he said when contacted.
Comm Ramli emphasised such measures would ultimately result in a substantial reduction in scam cases, safeguarding the public from financial losses.Comm Ramli also called for stricter enforcement of the “know your customer” policy, particularly for firms opening bank accounts.
“We are seeing a trend where companies can easily open accounts and register with banking systems.
“Unfortunately, some of these companies are being exploited as money mules, especially in investment scams.”
To address this, Comm Ramli urged financial institutions to collaborate with the Companies Commission of Malaysia for thorough vetting of companies applying for account registration.
“This would ensure only legitimate companies are approved, preventing scammers from using shell companies to move ill-gotten gains,” he said.
Comm Ramli revealed that commercial crimes, including online scams, have resulted in RM2.7bil in losses this year alone.
Between Jan 1 and Dec 15, up to 30,724 cases were recorded – a 3% drop from last year’s 31,588 cases. However, the losses have surged by 44% from RM1.9bil last year.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim previously highlighted the government’s progress in combating cybercrime through the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) and the new National Fraud Portal.
The NSRC received 64,000 calls between January and September, with 22,000 reports of financial losses from fraud schemes.
“We have slashed fund-tracing time by 75% and boosted frozen asset recovery by 34%,” Anwar told the Dewan Negara in a written response recently.
Additionally, banks have enhanced fraud detection capabilities by 37%, aiding authorities in identifying thousands of “mule accounts” used by criminals to obscure money trails.
