Interview on FiveAA about new scams campaign

Matthew Pantelis (Host): But let’s talk scams and banks, because there’s a new campaign launched to protect us well, to at least educate us further about scams. It’s called ‘The Fight Against Scams Never Stops’. Anna Bligh, CEO, Australian Bankers Association. Anna, good morning.

Anna Bligh (Guest): Good morning. How are you?

Matthew Pantelis: All right thank you. Tell us about the campaign. What do you hope it achieves?

Anna Bligh: Well, we’ve seen it, banks coming together to unite in the fight against scam. So, whether it’s the four major big banks, right down to the smallest credit union or building society, we’ve put together a whole suite of initiatives, one of which we really want customers to know and understand is putting more friction in their payments. So, when they transfer money to someone they’ve never paid before, they are increasingly going to see and some customers will be seeing it already, messages from their bank or their credit union saying this might not be cleared, this payment for 24 hours. Or are you sure that you want to make this payment? Have you checked that you’ve got the right account number? Something that just slows it down a bit, which could, for some people, feel quite inconvenient, but it is being done to protect people and their safety and also give banks the best opportunity to recover the money. If you get off the phone and think, I don’t think that was right, and you ring your bank, if it’s an account number you’ve never transferred to before, increasingly, it’s going to be still in your account, and they can freeze or stop the payment if you can get to them in time. So ,it’s an important part. There’s no silver bullet, we’re up against some of the most sophisticated criminal gangs in the world, our priority is to stop the scam happening in the first place. If it does, if you do end up on a phone call with someone who’s trying to panic you into moving your money, you know, letting people know that if you do transfer to the wrong place or something that you get off the phone and don’t feel comfortable about, increasingly, banks are going to hold those payments to give you the best chance of getting that money back.

Matthew Pantelis: So, you get that text, you need to verify with the bank that it’s okay or not, but if it is yours, you need to tell them it is?

Anna Bligh: Yes. You’ll be getting warnings, either a warning or a question that says, are you sure this is the right account? Do you really want to do this? Now you know, ultimately, that’s a decision for each customer and for most people, most of the time, it’s going to be, yes, I’m paying my plumber or a new plumber I’ve never paid before, and I’ve checked the number, and it’s all okay. But sometimes it won’t be the right person, it’ll be someone that you shouldn’t be paying. And hopefully, those questions and warnings and delays will help customers to just take a minute, because these scammers, they prey on your emotions, they prey on fear, and they cause you to panic. So that’s why banks are putting more friction in the system that you know, if a customer has been tricked, basically tricked by a scammer into doing something because they panicked, because this scammer was just very convincing about the need to transfer the money quickly, then we’re going to slow it down. And it’s one way of putting a spoke in the wheels of scammers, and the way they do business.

Matthew Pantelis: Yeah, indeed. Now I’ve been in banks, and I’ve been asked this myself, when you take out, you know, a grand or two or three or more, close a term deposit or whatever, you get asked, what are you going to do with the money? And my first reaction to that the first time was, well, that’s none of your business, actually. But then people have pointed out to me, and it makes sense. It’s telling us, making sure you’re not being scammed, that you’re not taking it out because somebody says you need to take it out to pay for, I don’t know, bitumising your roof or whatever the case may be.

Anna Bligh: Yes, look, it is a fine line. I think we’re all very private about our financial dealings, and we like to make sure that ourfinancial information is kept very confidential for a very understandable reason. But you know, I think what banks are trying to do is where it’s appropriate, where it might help, encouraging their staff, whether it’s on a call centre, whether it’s in their fraud teams, or whether it’s, you know, in a branch, just to ask some prompting questions. Now most people, I think they’re probably going to say, none of your business. But if somebody says, well I had a phone call from the fraud team who said I should transfer money or you know I’ve been told I’ve got outstanding debts with the tax office, and it turns out that none of that’s true, then that’s one person that we’ve helped.

Matthew Pantelis: Yeah, absolutely, is the responsibility on the person, though. I mean, to what extent will banks recompense if somebody has been scammed?

Anna Bligh: Look, I think the responsibility is shared. It’s shared right across the scam chain. So how do you mostly get your scams? They come to you through an SMS, phone call, an email and.So you know, our telco providers have to make sure they’re keeping us as safe as possible. How does the money leave your account? Generally, because you’ve told your bank to move it, and banks need to make sure they’re doing everything they can to make sure that, for example, if they’ve had good information in the past, that that account you’re trying to transfer to has been associated with a scam, because often it’s an account in another bank or it’s a crypto platform, then the bank needs to take some responsibility for that. But equally as customers, we’ve all got to take a bit of personal responsibility. These scammers are very clever, and they do try to panic us, but we’ve all got to get it into our heads, ever give you password, never give you pin. As you said earlier, don’t let somebody you’ve never met into your computer. And I think as we see more and more of these, unfortunately, scams, we’re all learning.For one, I don’t answer a call from a number I don’t recognise. I think, well, it’s, it’s probably a scammer. If it’s not, if it’s a person who needs to talk to me, they’ll leave a message, and mostly nine out of 10 they don’t leave a message. So, you know, I’m glad I didn’t answer.

Matthew Pantelis: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Anna Bligh: We do need to be careful. But I think all parts of the system, if a social media platform is advertising and earning money from an ad, for example, for an investment opportunity that’s frankly, the dodgy brothers, then they’ve got some liability, and the government is putting in place over the next year, i would hope we would see it. They’re still drafting legislation that will provide absolute clarity to each part of that chain, and importantly to customers you know, which says, here are your mandatory obligations, whether you’re a telco or a bank or a social media platform, if you don’t meet them, then you will be liable to pay your share back to the customer.

Matthew Pantelis: Yep. And all very important and certainly a critical message to get out to people, particularly because they strike it always seems to be, you’re in a rush, you’re in a supermarket or whatever, and if it does come up, you get a phone number that reads as if it’s your bank, or a text message that has been added to a string of messages you’ve had from your bank, because somehow they’ve got into that. Andit appears to be a bank, not necessarily, is so very important to double check and check with your bank independently,

Anna Bligh: Absolutely. And, you know, that’s a good example of something which, you know, that’s, that’s the telco that’s letting that message into the thread. And, you know, somebody got into your family thread, I think you’d feel that you’d also been violated. But I think, one of the big important messages at the moment, because there is a bit of a scam, or there is a scam that’s been doing the rounds that where someone rings and says, I’m from the fraud team, from your bank, your account is being compromised. You need to move your funds immediately to another account. Your bank will never, ever, ever call you unprompted, and get you to move funds into another account. Just stop and take a moment, if your bank thought your account, was being compromised, they’ll freeze it, and then they’ll call you.They won’t call you and ask you to move your money. That’s just not something a bank would ever, ever do. So, if someone rings you and says, move your money quickly. You know, it’s a scammer, hang up.

Matthew Pantelis: All right, excellent. Well, I’ve got you just quickly the regional banking inquiry that was run by the Senate calling for a code of conduct, customer service code to make some changes, recommendations, including branch alternatives for regional areas and regulatory reform potentially service obligation on banks. The banking Association’s response to that was what,

Anna Bligh: Well, we’re still working through the recommendations of that inquiry, but I think it is important, and I don’t really think the inquiry gave enough recognition of the work that banks do with Australia Post. Australia Post has one of the biggest service footprints in the country, and Australia’s banks, the largest right through to the smallest, more than 80 banking institutions pay Australia Post to provide banking services there. You know, there’s more than 3500 of those, and Australia still has one of the highest number of branches per capita in the OECD, higher than New Zealand, higher than a number of comparison countries.

Matthew Pantelis: But some don’t deal in cash though. That’s just ridiculous?

Anna Bligh: Well, again, it depends on where you are, but increasingly we are going to see cash being distributed by a broader cross-section. It’s always been through your bank, you can get it through your post office, you can get it through an ATM, you can get it through a supermarket. Think a bigger challenge for Australia is for those people who live in quite remote parts of Australia, you know, who don’t have necessarily a supermarket in town, or don’t necessarily have a post office, that’s much tougher, and I will certainly be looking at those recommendations and talking to government about what is a reasonable way for us, I think the big challenge at the moment is, while there are still many Australians who want or need to use cash, for most Australians, they are using less and less and less of it. So, getting it to these far places is becoming more expensive more difficult. Banks don’t transport it, companies like Armaguard do, and they’re struggling to stay afloat. So, it’s a challenge, and particularly we’re not alone, it’s happening around the world, but we’re a bit unique in that there aren’t many countries trying to service the geography that we do in Australia.

Matthew Pantelis: Anna Bligh, thank you for your time this morning.

Anna Bligh: Thank you

Matthew Pantelis: CEO Australian Banking Association.

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