Advocacy body Consumer Action is calling on all Australian banks to enhance their protection methods against scammers. Their comments follows Commonwealth Bank's announcement that it is strengthening its payment system to make it harder for crooks to scam their customers.
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The bank has introduced measures called NameCheck and CallCheck to help make impersonating people more difficult.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Australians losses to scams may have reached over $4 billion last year.
Consumer Action chief executive officer Stephanie Tonkin said some of those losses could have been stopped by having more robust customer identification systems.
"It is completely unfair that individuals bear the full losses associated with scams when scammers must have access to bank accounts to succeed. The current lack of financial incentive for the banks to fix this has meant that improvements like this are too slow to be implemented across the sector," she said.
"We call upon other banks to follow (Commonwealth Bank's) suit, and if CBA can help them roll out the necessary technology, then they should do so. Scam prevention should be a shared goal and not a point of competition between banks."
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said only 13 per cent of scams are reported.
"Every day we hear heart-breaking stories on our helpline from people who have lost everything with severe impacts that extend to their mental and physical health, so what we need is a sophisticated, coordinated and well-resourced response from banks and Government to stop and catch these criminals," Stephanie said.
She said while the federal government's focus on scam disruption across the economy is a welcome opportunity, telecommunications companies, online platforms, as well as financial institutions, must all be required to play a role.
If you wish to report a scam, visit Scam Watch here.
