Banks Execute BNM’s Five Key Measures to Fight Financial Scams

KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara Malaysia has unveiled five critical steps to fight financial fraud. The three local banking sector organizations have declared their complete support for the initiatives (BNM).

Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunos, governor of the BNM, made the announcement on 26th September at the opening of the Financial Crime Exhibition.

The ABM, AIBIM, and ADFIM released a joint statement today. It declared that the banking sector recognizes the implementation of these measures. It may lead to changes in the online banking experiences and expectations of consumers.

There may be a little delay in the processing time for your online banking transactions as a result of the additional safety checks.

Due to the potential for disruption as a result of these new procedures, we sincerely beg for our customers’ understanding and tolerance. It did, however, stress the need for these steps for the utmost protection of the bank’s clientele.

They said that their member banks would be transparent with their clients about the above steps. It includes when each will go into effect and if consumers will need to make any adjustments to their procedures. Moreover, take any other action, and who they may reach out to if they need help.

Among the five main steps is switching from an SMS one-time password (OTP) to a more secure authentication mechanism. It includes secure multi-factor authentication software or hardware tokens for specific transactions.

Money transfers, payments, account information updates, and configuration modifications all fall under this category.

Other steps include requiring further verification and a cooling-off period before enrolling in e-banking services or security devices. It also implements the authentication of electronic banking transactions to a single mobile device or secure device per account user.

Lastly, they said that clients may contact their bank at any time through a specific complaint channel/hotline if they experience or suspect any kind of scam/fraud.

Banking Groups

The bank groups also urged clients to be careful whenever they are doing business online. Especially adhere to best practices for online banking security.

They advised customers to refrain from clicking on links sent via chat messages like SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, and other similar services. It is to check that their online banking security image and phrase are correctly displayed on the screen. But, this is before logging in and to not downloading any installation files (APK files) on their devices.

In addition, ABM, AIBIM, and ADFIM expressed their appreciation for the efforts made to improve the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) Scam Response Centre as a more streamlined information-sharing platform to facilitate prompter responses and mitigate additional losses.

If you see any unusual activity on your bank account, you should report it to your bank right away, then call the CCID Scam Response Centre at 03-2610 1559/1599 and file a police complaint to help investigators. -Bernama