Banks blocked RM383mil worth of fraudulent transactions in 2023, says Aibim

KUALA LUMPUR: RM383mil of fraudulent transactions was blocked by 15 banks in 2023.

This was revealed by Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) Industry Taskforce chairman Datuk John Chong at the #JanganKenaScam workshop on Thursday (March 7).

“It shows that the preventative measures taken by banks are effective,” he said, citing measures like in-app secure approval and allowing single devices to be registered per customer among others to combat scams.

Meanwhile, speaking about online scams, Commercial Crime Investigation Department SAC Koh Seok Keng said that in 2023, 34,536 online scams were reported.

This was a 35% increase from 2022, where 25,480 cases were reported.

Online scams have been on a rising trend since 2019, according to the charts present during her speech.

She said that the scams included phone scams, love scams, unlicensed money lending scams and phishing scams.

“Beware of those that ask you to make a police report online, this is a scam as police reports can only be made in police premises,” she said, adding a warning not to pick up phone numbers from unknown contacts.

Koh also said that the fastest kind of scams were investment scams, which promises returns that were too good to be true.

For victims of scams, she reminded them to call 997 to the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) hotline within 24 hours from the time the transaction had been made.

“The amount can be tracked and earmarked by the police,” she said.

However this service was only available from Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm.

“Currently the service does not have enough logistic support and is understaffed to be available 24/7,” she said.

The workshop was held in Menara Ken, Taman Tun Dr Ismail to create more awareness about the dangers of scams

It was organised by the ABM and Association of Islamic Banking and Financial institutions Malaysia (Aibim).

Among the panelist speakers were Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commissions Online Harms and Information Security chairman Derek Fernadez.

Maybank group chief digital officer Kalyani Singh and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) certified practitioner Lai Chee Seng were also panel speakers