Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), one of Australia’s ‘big four’ banks, announced last week that it is the first to have integrated its systems with the country’s intelligence loop, a mechanism to rapidly share data about scams with telcos, police, and other relevant parties. James Roberts, General Manager Group Fraud at CBA (pictured) shared the news by commenting on the loop pioneered by the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX).
As the first bank to integrate into AFCX’s intel loop, CBA is committing to sharing across industries the intelligence we collect, to help bolster the nation’s response. It has been encouraging recently to see a reduction in the amount our customers are losing to scams, but there is more to do.
At the same time, the Australian Banking Association has welcomed the addition to the intelligence loop of the National Anti-Scam Centre, the government-run office for coordinating the response to any scams identified within Australia.
The driving concept behind the loop is like that of a distributed fraud management system, which records the progress of investigations and responses to fraud cases, but with the flow of information and responsibility for taking action passing between separate organizations. One of the most obvious examples involves banks relaying information about scam calls and messages received by their customers, so that telcos can then block the originators of these communications.
CBA noted that the first goal of the loop will be to reduce smishing, before progressively extending to other ways of effecting scams.
Information sharing between participants will be increased in phases, with an initial focus on reducing the number of SMS phishing scams. Since integrating, CBA has submitted over 1,200 entries into the loop containing scam phone numbers and dodgy URLs.
Australia is keeping a close eye on the way Singapore is tackling the nexus of scams between telecoms and the financial sector, and both countries appear to be copying successful methods from each other. These announcements were made following a fact-finding visit to Singapore of a delegation involving representatives of the Australian government, the National Anti-Scam Centre, CBA and other banks.
It appears that both Australia and Singapore are amongst the most advanced in the world when it comes to developing a sophisticated and comprehensive anti-scam strategy that cuts across multiple sectors. Stephen Jones, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services in Australia’s Federal Government, spoke to the press about the Singapore trip when the delegation returned.
…we’ve been talking to the authorities up there about their national anti-scam agenda and I can honestly say there’s not a country in the world that is further advanced than us.
Singapore created a national anti-scam command center in March 2022, whilst the Australian version was launched in July 2023. Singapore has also imposed rules which stiplate when banks or telcos will be responsible for reimbursing victims of scams as a consequence of one or other failing to execute mandatory anti-scam controls. Australia has not chosen to follow that aspect of the Singaporean approach, though businesses can be fined for failing to implement similar controls. Both countries have emphasized the need for a coordinated approach to scam reduction which works across multiple industries; the cross-sector principles underpinning the Australian anti-scam strategy were adroitly communicated through a government consultation run earlier this year.
