There are many factors that play a role when it comes to protecting consumers from scams and each industry needs to come to the party. Outside of the government and Telcos, banks are on the front line when it comes to protecting their customers, whether it’s the data they hold or the strategies they need to put in place to protect their customers once they’ve been scammed.

Preventing Australian consumers from becoming the victims of scams not only avoids the significant financial losses associated for both families and our communities, but also stops the significant distress and inconvenience that might be caused.

There is a great deal of variability in the steps being undertaken by the banks to help prevent their customers from becoming the victim of scams and the Government needs to act now.

Scam prevention activities undertaken by the banks include:

• Customer scam awareness and education
• Increasing friction when conducting payments to give customers more time and opportunity to identify a payment may not be legitimate, and
• Taking steps to reduce the risk of their brand assets being misused by scammers.

To help reduce the incidence of scams, the Government and the RBA have a duty of care to undertake an extensive advertising campaign to educate Australians.

One Australian bank created a campaign for scam awareness targeted at older customers. This bank prepared educational material targeted towards customers over the age of 70 years old and developed a guide to help older people avoid scams and established a dedicated scams team focused on customers in this age group.

This bank reported that from November 2020 to February 2022, its dedicated team had successfully declined or prevented $32.6 million in scam transactions for this customer demographic. The evidence is in the numbers.

As was indicated in Sell Securely’s Scam Report, a staggering 98% of Australians believe more needs to be done on education with a similar number saying that more needs to be done to combat the issue at hand.

There are many factors that play a role when it comes to protecting consumers from scams and each industry needs to come to the party. Outside of the government and Telcos, banks are on the front line when it comes to protecting their customers, whether it’s the data they hold or the strategies they need to put in place to protect their customers once they’ve been scammed.

Preventing Australian consumers from becoming the victims of scams not only avoids the significant financial losses associated for both families and our communities, but also stops the significant distress and inconvenience that might be caused.

There is a great deal of variability in the steps being undertaken by the banks to help prevent their customers from becoming the victim of scams and the Government needs to act now.

Scam prevention activities undertaken by the banks include:

• Customer scam awareness and education
• Increasing friction when conducting payments to give customers more time and opportunity to identify a payment may not be legitimate, and
• Taking steps to reduce the risk of their brand assets being misused by scammers.

To help reduce the incidence of scams, the Government and the RBA have a duty of care to undertake an extensive advertising campaign to educate Australians.

One Australian bank created a campaign for scam awareness targeted at older customers. This bank prepared educational material targeted towards customers over the age of 70 years old and developed a guide to help older people avoid scams and established a dedicated scams team focused on customers in this age group.

This bank reported that from November 2020 to February 2022, its dedicated team had successfully declined or prevented $32.6 million in scam transactions for this customer demographic. The evidence is in the numbers.

As was indicated in Sell Securely’s Scam Report, a staggering 98% of Australians believe more needs to be done on education with a similar number saying that more needs to be done to combat the issue at hand.