Prevention key to tackling scams, customers bear responsibility too: OCBC CEO
PREVENTION is key when it comes to addressing scams, said OCBC chief executive Helen Wong, even as she acknowledged that fraudsters can come up with new modus operandi in their future exploits.
The bank has been strengthening its surveillance systems in light of the recent spate of short message service (SMS) phishing scams that have affected hundreds of customers. The bank does not expect to have to devote large amounts of expenses to scam prevention or to make large provisions for payouts.
"A lot of these capabilities, we already have. It is about switching (them) on," Wong said at the bank's earnings call on Wednesday (Feb 23).
Customers also bear a responsibility in preventing scams, she added.
"We have a lot of discussion among the banks to tackle scam in this area... I think the key thing is about prevention. And a key thing is about whether customers also have the responsibility to safeguard their own money, and to safeguard their own banking credentials," Wong said.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced in early February that it is developing a framework on how losses arising from scams are to be shared among consumers and financial institutions, while also working with the industry on "longer-term measures" to enhance the security of digital banking.
Close to 800 OCBC customers lost a combined S$13.7 million when scammers took advantage of old SMS technology to impersonate and dupe victims into handing over their online banking login details.
OCBC said in January that it had made full goodwill payouts to all victims. Wong stressed on Wednesday that this was a one-off payout made because of the speed at which the scam unfolded and other circumstances leading to it.
"We feel for our clients because they trust us. They click into the link that was supposedly coming from our bank and they hit on websites that were very well-designed. So we made that decision based on these," she said.
The police have also recovered about S$2 million of losses.
MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore have introduced new measures to bolster digital banking security, such as cooling-off periods of account detail changes and a minimum 12-hour delay for activating mobile tokens.
Last week, OCBC also introduced a "kill switch" that lets customers freeze their bank accounts if they suspect that they have been scammed, or believe key account-related details have been compromised.
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