KUALA LUMPUR: Some 95% of fraudulent online banking transactions involving mule accounts were ‘voluntarily’ authorised by victims, says Lim Hui Yin.
The Deputy Finance Minister said that such ‘authorised fraud’ made it difficult for the banks to detect or halt such transactions involving mule accounts
"Cheating cases involving authorised fraud remain very high and comprise 95% of all cheating cases.
"This is due to the nature of the scam which involves authorised transactions which seem genuine.
"This makes it very challenging for the financial institutions to identify and halt such transactions without creating a risk to the banking payment system," she said when answering a supplementary question raised by Datuk Awang Hashim (PN-Pendang) in Dewan Rakyat on Monday (Feb 17).
She added that scammers will usually exploit students to create ‘mule accounts’ which also made it difficult to detect.
"The nature and use of these accounts are similar valid accounts.
"They are opened by the clients after fulfilling the stipulated conditions or customer due diligence checklist (CDC)," she added.
Nevertheless, Lim said that the setting up of the National Fraud Portal (NFP) last year has helped in tracking and freezing transactions linked to scams.
"Between April and September last year, the NFP has successfully frozen transactions by up to an average of 34% a month compared to previously," she added.
Earlier, Lim informed the House that dubious transactions totalling RM399mil were halted by the banks last year.
"The number is cases of involving phishing and malware reported to Bank Negara was reduced by 60% for the first nine months of last year," she said when answering a supplementary question raised by Chong Chieng Jen (PH-Stampin).
She added that this was due to enhanced security and fast responses in dealing with online fraud cases.
Meanwhile, Lim said that the government had introduced a policy to make banks accountable to victims of fraud.
She said that banks would have to compensate clients who were cheated if they had failed to comply with stipulated banking regulations.
She added that victims, who were not satisfied with the compensation amount, could bring the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman.
Last December, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that banks must compensate scam victims if they were negligent in the matter.
Following this, Bank Negara announced that financial institutions will bear full responsibility for fraud losses resulting from unauthorised transactions due to lapses in their security controls.
