Continuing to invest in new measures to better protect the community from scams

ANZ has today announced several new measures as part of its continued fight to help protect customers and the community from scams and other financial crimes.

Scams are an insidious problem – according to ACCC’s Scamwatch almost 240,000 scams were reported in 2022. ANZ’s customers are not immune to the threat of scams.

ANZ is continually reviewing and adjusting its capabilities to keep customers safe as new scams emerge and scammers change how they operate. ANZ’s newest measures include:

• The deployment of more than 170 new sophisticated algorithms that have helped to prevent $20m of customer scam losses across multiple payment channels.

• A significant investment in a new capability using AI and Machine Learning technology designed to detect accounts being used to receive funds from scam victims. Known as ‘mule accounts’, ANZ’s pilot of this technology has detected nearly 1400 high risk accounts since April 2023.

• Preventing payments being made to particular high risk cryptocurrency platforms and introducing new holds and delays to some payment types and destinations.

• Working with the major telcos to activate the Do Not Originate (DNO) service and to put in place measures that stop scammers from adopting the “ANZ” label in text messages. Known as SMS spoofing, scammers purport to be sending an SMS from a legitimate organisation, which has been a common criminal tactic across Australia in recent months.

The new measures are in addition to capabilities introduced in the last 12 months, which have seen:

• Progressive rollout of biometrics capabilities allowing ANZ to identify anomalies in usual payment processes and account opening to better protect customers from fraud and minimise security risks – our behavioural risk engine has detected more than 2200 fraudulent online applications, preventing approximately $23m being lost to criminals in the last nine months.

• The identification of compromised credentials through routine and regular dark web scanning which has resulted in proactively disabling approximately 485 at-risk profiles, preventing ~$2.5m of fraud losses per month.

• The removal of approximately 150 phishing sites per month with most of these sites taken down on the same day as reported / detected.

• Adoption of the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange’s (AFCX) Fraud Reporting Exchange (FRX) platform – a centralised system that offers near real-time reporting and actioning of fraud and scam recoveries, while providing greater efficiency and timely communications between institutions for stronger scam prevention and recoveries, where possible.

ANZ Head of Customer Protection Shaq Johnson said: “Our investment in new technologies is critical as we continue to work to protect our customers and the community from fraud and scams.”

“We are constantly reviewing and evolving our prevention and detection security settings as new scams emerge and scammers change how they operate.”

“The threat of scammers is not new. Our advancements mean we are better placed to keep our customers safe from the threat of scams.

“The challenge is that as soon as we close one avenue, the scammers quickly move to try and open another. We continue to invest millions of dollars in new technology. As a result, over the last nine months, we’ve prevented $61 million from going to cyber-criminals.

“There is a whole of community response needed to scam prevention, and while banks play a critical role, customers need to protect themselves and be extremely vigilant and suspicious of unsolicited contact,” Mr Johnson said.

Individuals of all age groups are increasingly finding themselves victims as scammers become more and more sophisticated. The most prevalent scams involve third parties gaining remote access to customers’ computers and devices, followed closely by investment, romance and inheritance scams.

ANZ’s customer protection teams and systems operate 24/7. Customers who believe they may have been a victim of a scam should contact us immediately, on 13 33 50 or visit us at http://www.anz.com.au/security/report-fraud/ for more information.

For more information on the types of scams and how to protect yourself visit http://www.anz.com.au/security/types-of-scams.

Download PDF