Banks remind customers to remain vigilant to threat of scammers this Scams Awareness Week

The ABA is reminding customers to remain vigilant to the tell-tale signs of scammers as Australian banks continue to ramp-up protections to help keep their money safe.

ABA CEO Anna Bligh said this year's theme 'share a story, stop a scam' was an opportunity for all Australians to support each other and fight back against the criminal activity of scammers.

"Whilst financial losses from scams fell by 13 per cent last year and actions by government and industry, including banks, are making a difference, Australians are still losing way too much at the hands of scammers," Ms Bligh said.

"I encourage all Australians who have been the victim of a scam to help educate others about the risks and tricks that scammers often deploy to try and steal money.

"Whilst it's understandable that people may feel a sense of shame when they are scammed, telling their stories can help others to better protect themselves from this scourge on our society.

"This week is a good opportunity for banking customers to remain vigilant to the tell-tale signs that they may be dealing with a scammer.

"Your bank will never call you up out of the blue and ask you to transfer money to another account, nor will they ever ask you to handover banking passcodes or passwords."

As a reminder, your bank will never:

• contact you to ask for any account or personal details in an unsolicited text or email
• call and ask people to transfer funds to another account over the phone
• ask for online banking passcodes or passwords over email, text or phone
• ask for remote access to your devices
• threaten you to take immediate action on an issue.

Ms Bligh said Australian banks had some of the strongest anti-scam protections in the world to help shield people from scammers.

"Our industry's Scam-Safe Accord is setting an even higher standard of protection. It's more safeguards to help keep people's money safe," Ms Bligh said.

"Banks are deploying a range of tactics and tools to protect Australians from scammers such as payment warnings and delays to the blocking of transfers to dodgy scam accounts."

The Scam-Safe Accord includes:

• a $100 million investment by banks in a new confirmation of payee system, ensuring people can confirm they are transferring money to the person they intend to
• more warnings, payment delays and questions to protect customers
• the adoption of further technology and controls to help prevent identity fraud, such as the use of at least one biometric check for new individual customers opening accounts
• a major expansion of intelligence sharing across the sector
• all banks to implement anti-scams strategies.

Progress continues to be made on the development of the industry-wide confirmation of payee capability with the design phase now complete and build underway. Australia will only be the fourth country in the world to have this capability.

For more information on how banking customers can better protect themselves, please visit: https://www.ausbanking.org.au/scams-hear-the-alarm-bells/

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