Society has to choose security over convenience when dealing with scams: MAS chief

[SINGAPORE] As a society, there is a need to choose more security over convenience especially when dealing with scams, said Chia Der Jiun, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

This comes as measures to fight scams inevitably introduce more friction and delays to users. “While the industry will do its best to minimise the inconvenience and give time for customers to get used to the new measures, as a society we will have to make the choice for more security and less convenience,” he said at the release of MAS’ annual report on Tuesday (Jul 15).

Chia noted that MAS has been working with banks and payment service providers to implement stronger safeguards to disrupt scam transactions. For example, banks have phased out SMS one-time passwords for digital token user account logins and authentication of card transactions, while some major retail banks have implemented pre-transaction warnings for large value transfers made via digital banking.