OCBC customers to get alerts for all PayNow, FAST transfer transactions

OCBC CUSTOMERS will now get notifications for all PayNow and FAST transactions, after the scam-hit bank set the threshold at a default S$0.01, OCBC announced on Friday (Jan 21).

The change comes on top of controls that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) told Singapore banks to implement within a fortnight, which included an instruction to set the threshold for notifications at S$100 or lower.

OCBC O39 : O39 0% confirmed in its latest statement that "we have further enhanced security measures", including the measures mandated by the MAS and ABS on Wednesday.

For instance, OCBC will put in place a 24-hour cooling-off period for key account changes by Jan 31, which would be in line with the banking sector's new requirement for a waiting period after requests for changes to information such as customers' key contact details.

OCBC had already implemented a 24-hour cooling-off period for digital tokens on Dec 31, 2021, the bank added in its statement. The MAS and ABS have called for a delay of at least 12 hours.

Besides the notifications for all PayNow and FAST transactions, OCBC customers have had their default PayNow transfer daily limit set at S$1,000 since Jan 14, down from $5,000 before. Similarly, the default amount that OCBC customers can transfer in each transaction has been capped at S$200, down from S$1,000 previously.

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The security of online banking transactions in Singapore has come under scrutiny, prompting MAS managing director Ravi Menon to pledge earlier this week that “we will ensure that digital banking remains secure, efficient, and trusted”.

The regulator  stepped in after a spate of scams that targeted OCBC customers, who lost some S$8.5 million in all.

Scammers impersonated OCBC in short message service (SMS) communications, with at least 469 victims duped of their savings after divulging their online banking log-in details.

OCBC noted in its statement that it set up a dedicated customer service care team for fraud reports, to address the SMS scams that surfaced over the year-end holiday period.

This team has been made permanent, it said. Under the new rules, banks must have dedicated teams to deal with feedback on potential fraud, on a priority basis.

Banks were also told to remove clickable links in e-mails or SMS sent to retail customers. OCBC said that such links have been taken out of marketing messages since Jan 11.

Rival lender DBS has gone one step further and stopped sending non-essential SMS messages to retail and wealth customers from Friday until further notice.

In response to the SMS phishing, the MAS and ABS stressed in a joint statement that financial institutions should have “robust measures to prevent and detect scams as well as effective incident handling and customer service in the event of a scam”.

The MAS is scrutinising major financial institutions’ fraud surveillance mechanisms, and had earlier said that OCBC is carrying out “a thorough probe to identify the deficiencies in their processes and implement the necessary remedial measures”