Interview on ABC Radio Sydney on scams

Sarah Macdonald (Host): Have you had a call from your bank to check you’re okay? Did you see the Commonwealth Bank in Canberra yesterday appearing and executives saying it is taking down 50 fake Commonwealth Bank websites a week, 50 a week. As you know, Australians are losing a lot of money to scams, $3 billion last year, but the banks are making some inroads on this. The Commonwealth taking down websites. What else are they doing so you are safer from scammers. Anna Bligh, is the Chief Executive of the Australian Banking Association. Good morning.  

Anna Bligh (Guest): Good morning, Sarah. 

Sarah Macdonald: 50 Commonwealth Bank websites a week. That’s a lot.  

Anna Bligh: It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? And that’s just one of our banks. You could multiply that across the entire banking system, whether it’s a small credit union or one of the big four. You know, scammers are using every weapon that they possibly can to try to trick people into giving them money, and if that is impersonating a bank, in order to try and convince you to invest in a dodgy investment scheme that actually doesn’t exist. So yes, banks are putting extraordinary resources into this. You also would have heard the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, Matt Comyn yesterday, also told the parliament that the Commonwealth Bank has 4000 people working in the scam teams. They’re investing 800 million in the last financial year to protect customers better, and it’s starting to work. They’ve had a 50 per cent reduction in Commonwealth Bank customer losses to scams. That’s amazing turnaround in one year.  

Sarah Macdonald: So, it’s falling by a half, but $800 million is a lot of money to put in, and can the smaller banks do that?  

Anna Bligh: Well, of course, the Commonwealth Bank has a bigger book, has a bigger customer base, so these things are proportionate. But last year, all banks from the smallest building society through to the biggest banks signed up to an anti-scams accord. Every bank’s doing a lot in their own bank, but this was something they signed up to and said, it doesn’t matter who you bank with, we are all going to do certain things. One of those was, we’re all going to start to introduce more friction, more delays and more questions when you are transferring money, large amounts of money, to, particularly someone you’ve never paid before.  

Sarah Macdonald: Yes, I’ve noticed that on my app that they say you sure you want to do this, and this may take a couple of days because you’ve never sent them money before. And I think Westpac has changed its verification system too. 

Anna Bligh: That’s right. So, you know, it gives people the opportunity to think, oh, maybe I should double check. It also means, particularly if you don’t get the transfer of the money for a couple of days, if you realise, no, actually, that is the wrong place, the bank’s got a better chance of getting the money back for you. They’ve also started to introduce, in some cases, vetoes on transfer of funds to some crypto platforms, and they’re doing that on a risk assessment. That has been one of the most effective things, because when money goes to a crypto platform, if a scammer tricks you into putting money onto a crypto platform, it’s almost impossible for banks to get it back.  

Sarah Macdonald: What is the obligation there Anna Bligh, in terms of banks to compensating, to compensate someone who, for example, gets $20,000 stolen from their account as a result of a scam, if someone, for instance, impersonates a bank staff member. 

Anna Bligh: So if the bank, if the bank systems fail you, for example, you wake up one morning and somebody has hacked into your account overnight, and you have had no involvement in that, banks will reimburse 100 per cent and that has happened for quite a long time, and there’s a lot of money that goes in and out of accounts like that. If, however, you in some way have authorised the payment so someone, or you’ve given your pin number out, or in some way allowed people into your account, then that gets a lot trickier about who, who’s responsible and where the liability lies. So, the government is in the process of introducing legislation, a mandatory code that covers not only banks, but the other players in a scam chain. So, scams don’t come to you through your bank account. They come to you through mostly your mobile phone, your computer, it comes on a social media place, Facebook, comes as an SMS message. You know, you’ve got unpaid tolls. We’ve all had that one. 

Sarah MacDonald: We’ve all had that one.  

Anna Bligh: Yes. and so, these mandatory codes, will apply to our telecommunication providers, banks and to social media platforms, and they will mandate that you have certain things you have to do, for example, bring down a dodgy website as soon as you’ve been advised about it, as soon as possible. And if you fail to do that, and someone is scammed, then the liability for the loss will rest with that social media platform. If the bank transfers money to an account that they knew or should have known was a dodgy account, then they will have liability. But also, if the customer does things that they’ve been advised not to do, so give your PIN number, for example, they might also have some liability themselves.  

Sarah MacDonald:  So, when are those new mandatory codes come in? 

Anna Bligh: Well, the Government is still drafting them, but they’re committed to it. I understand. Hopefully we’ll see them before the end of this year. But in the meantime, this is actually Scams Awareness Week, Sarah. And one of the themes for this week, set by the National Anti-Scam Centre, is share a story, stop a scam. Many people feel a sense of embarrassment or shame that they fell for a trick, because that’s what a scam is. It’s someone who’s tricked you. They’ve played on your fears, they’ve panicked you, and they’ve tricked you into doing something. And what we’re trying to encourage people is report the scam, talk to your friends about it, because the more we all know about what those scammers are doing, the better we can protect ourselves, and the better banks and telcos and others when they when you get scammed, might be a brand-new scam.  

Sarah Macdonald: Yes, so you can help them spread the word. Yeah. Well, if people want to do that after nine, they can on 1300 triple 2 702, share the scam, help others. Anna Bligh is the chief executive of the Australian Banking Association, someone called FM texted me saying I got scammed $75,000 through an investment scam, but ING Bank got it back for me. They were amazing. They were relentless. I was very impressed, others not so lucky on my text line here. The Westpac boss also spoke about social media companies and saying they have to do more about scams. So, in terms of that, why are banks speaking about social media?  

Anna Bligh: Well, I think it’s probably out of a great deal of frustration, because it’s bank customers who then come to the bank and say, I’ve lost money to something that didn’t exist. People probably don’t realise, but there are no requirements or obligations on social media platforms to verify that a company who offers an investment product is actually a bonafide company, that it even exists, that it has a financial services license. So, anybody can put an ad up, it can impersonate the CEO of the CBA bank, and there is no recourse for customers. Or on a marketplace that the person offering you puppies has even got a dog.  

Sarah Macdonald: But Anna Bligh do you admit, though, the banks have taken a bit long to do this? It’s been going on for years. Billions have been lost. It’s good, it’s gone down by 50 per cent but did it take too long? 

Anna Bligh: Oh, well, I think everybody would rather we hadn’t seen the escalation in scams that we’ve seen in the last four to five years. I mean, scams have been around, you know, since Adam was a boy, but they’ve become, they’ve turned it into an industrial scale globally, not just here in Australia. A combination of things, more of us banking in the digital space, scammers actually having tech access to technology that previously just didn’t exist so that they can industrialise this. And interestingly, global geopolitical factors. The war in Ukraine has meant that the global kind of safety net of law enforcement out of Eastern Europe is not the same as it was before that. So, there’s a lot of things that’s caused an escalation. Banks are doing, as I’ve said, putting massive investments, but do we need to be doing more? I think everybody in the chain, every year is now doing business in the new digital world. Everyone’s going to have to invest every year, ongoing, every time. Where we kill one scam, another pops up, it’s whack a mole. So, we’re never going to put our feet up and say the job’s done.  

Sarah Macdonald: Thank you for your time this morning.  

Anna Bligh: Thank you.  

Sarag Macdonald: Anna Bligh, the Chief Executive of the Australian Banking Association. $800 million they spent last year, but it is reducing the fraud that is happening from the bank side of things. 

Ends 

Scams