Efforts by banks, telcos and others to combat the scourge of scams are bearing fruit.
The Targeting Scams report reveals a 13.1 per cent decline in reported scam losses to $2.74 billion over the year to December 2023.
Financial losses decreased over the second half of 2023 by 21 per cent compared with the first half of the year.
This data is from the first annual report published by the National Anti-Scam Centre established last year.
The report compiles data reported to Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), IDCARE and ASIC.
Investment scams continued to cause the most harm ($1.3 billion), followed by remote access scams ($256 million) and romance scams ($201 million).
While the data overall on scams looks to be improving, scammers are prospering on several fronts.
There were increases in reports of financial losses to phishing scams, payment redirection scams and job scams.
The two most common payment methods used by scammers are bank transfers and cryptocurrency. Bank transfers were the most reported payment method with 12,252 reports totalling $212.9 million in reported losses. This is consistent with 2022.
There were 3195 reports involving cryptocurrency as the payment method with $171.1 million reported lost (an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2022).
Even so, the Targeting Scams report calls out the benefits of “bank action on cryptocurrency exchanges.”
AFCX data from the end of the 2022/23 financial year indicated nearly half of all scam losses were processed through cryptocurrency exchanges.
From mid–2023, Westpac, CBA, NAB and ANZ and other banks have taken steps to limit transactions to ‘high risk’ cryptocurrency exchanges.
“This has likely reduced both direct scam payments particularly for investment scams, as well as reduced the incentives for some criminals to operate in Australia as transferring financial crime proceeds becomes more difficult” the report concludes.
The report also has a shout out for each of Commonwealth Bank and NAB for recent initiatives.
In mid 2023, Telstra and CBA announced a pilot program to help detect and prevent phone scams for joint customers. Scam Indicator enables CBA to confirm if a customer is on a phone call while transacting with the CBA which is an indicator that a scam could be occurring, potentially doubling the bank’s success rate of phone scam detection.
NAB also introduced payment prompts in digital banking to help customers see potential red flags leading to customers saving more than $50 million worth of payments to suspected scammers in eight months.
Similarly, a number of banks introduced additional security controls to detect fraud and scams throughout 2023.
The report also spruiks the anticipated benefits of confirmation of payee, which remains a work in progress.
“When implemented across all banks, confirmation of payee will have a significant impact in driving down scam losses.”
Heading a lengthy list of “next steps” is the development of mandatory and enforceable obligations requiring banks, telecommunications providers, and digital platforms to prevent, detect, disrupt, and respond to scams.
Another high priority for banks is data sharing between the National Anti-Scam Centre and the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange. This pair will co-produce a “anti-scam intelligence loop will lead to faster action to block scam bank accounts and better intelligence to inform detection and blocking of scams across participating organisations.”