Get to know the plans and requirements laid out in each of the Scam Safe Accord’s initiatives.
The Scam Safe Accord, which is a joint effort between Australian customer-owned banks, mutual banks, building societies, credit unions, and commercial banks, is a comprehensive set of anti-scam measures to be implemented across the country’s entire banking industry.
There are six initiatives that come together to form the Accord’s comprehensive strategy. As the details of each of these initiatives become more concrete, it’s important to form an understanding of their intended outcomes as well as how they’ll work together to better protect Australian bank customers against scams.
Understanding the Scam Safe Accord’s 6 Initiatives
In a nutshell, the Scam Safe Accord’s six initiatives introduce more secure payee confirmations, actions to prevent identity fraud, the implementation of warnings and payment delays, expanded intelligence sharing, limitations on payments through high-risk channels, and the implementation of an anti-scams strategy.
Here’s a closer look at the plans and requirements laid out in each of the initiatives:
1. Banks will deliver an industry-wide confirmation of payee solution to customers
Australian banks will introduce a technology that checks names to ensure that bank customers can be sure who they're dealing with. This helps reduce the risk of customers being tricked into sending money to a scammer when the name doesn’t match. The new system is currently being planned and developed and will be available for use between 2024 and 2025.
2. Banks will take action to prevent misuse of bank accounts via identity fraud
The country’s banks will prioritize the use of technology and safeguards to help prevent cases of identity fraud. By the end of 2024, major banks must use at least one biometric check for new customers opening accounts online. These checks will be either detectable to a person's behavior or will scan their face or fingerprint, enabling banks to use these characteristics to verify their customer’s identity.
3. Banks will introduce warnings and payment delays to protect customers
When banking customers send money to someone new or raise payment limits, their bank will ask them more questions, give them more warnings, and delay payments as needed in order to protect them from falling victim to scams. Australian banks will work to have these enhanced warnings and delays in place by the end of 2024.
4. Banks will invest in a major expansion of intelligence sharing across the sector
All banks that are members of ABA and COBA will join the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX) by mid-2024. They'll also join the Fraud Reporting Exchange (FRX) during 2024 and 2025. This will help banks rapidly share information about scams while also helping them prevent more scams and more quickly recover customer funds.
5. Banks will limit payments to high-risk channels to protect customers
Banks will make risk-based decisions whenever they find out that scammers are using risky ways to move money out of Australia. Furthermore, more banks will limit payments to high-risk channels, like certain cryptocurrency platforms, to keep customers safe from potential theft — this is especially important, since once stolen money goes into a risky cryptocurrency platform, it's difficult to get it back.
6. Banks will implement an anti-scams strategy
All Australian banks will implement an anti-scams strategy to improve oversight of the detection and response to scams.
How Wultra Can Support Australian Banks
With our modern authentication solution, Wultra can help banks and fintech companies in Australia meet each of the objectives spelled out in the Scam Safe Accord. Not only is our solution specifically designed to meet regulatory requirements — it also offers simple customer onboarding aided by facial recognition.
Banks and financial institutions in Australia looking to stay a big step ahead of scammers will welcome the increased level of security that our authentication solution provides. And with the Scam Safe Accord’s initiatives quickly coming into effect, now is the ideal time for banks to invest in a comprehensive authentication solution to protect their customers’ online transactions.
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