Yahoo Finance Westpac’s major move for millions of customers: ‘Australia first’
The major bank has teamed up with Optus to allow customers to receive calls via the Westpac app.
Westpac customers will soon be able to receive verified calls from the bank within the Westpac app, as part of a new partnership with Optus. The major bank hopes the “Australia first” move will help crack down on scammers posing as staff.
The new in-app calling capability, called SafeCall, will see Optus verify calls placed through Westpac’s app and show customers a reason for the call. It comes after the bank moved to blacklist 94,000 numbers which scammers had attempted to spoof.
Westpac CEO Peter King said the new calling capability would help reduce bank impersonation scams and make Australia a “harder target for scammers”.
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“This will help to provide customers with the confidence and added security to help beat scammers and know that they really are talking to their bank,” King said.
Optus interim CEO Michael Venter said the “world-leading solution” would allow customers to receive Westpac branded and verified calls and “clearly identify interactions with the bank”.
King said the bank was currently detecting 69 per cent of all scam cases, with bank impersonation scams among the most common types of scam impacting customers.
Have you fallen victim to a banking scam? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com
It has invested more than $100 million in new detection and prevention measures, including the industry-wide Scam Safe Accord.
Westpac has also introduced measures including SaferPay which gives customers a series of questions to answer if a payment is considered “high risk” of being a scam. Meanwhile, Verify flags if there is a potential mismatch with a new payee's name and details.
Westpac says its anti-scam measures mean its customers avoided losing more than $400 million to scammers over the past two years.
The calling capability will also mean customers can call the bank directly via the Westpac app, which is used by more than three million customers each day.
$2.74 billion lost to scams
It comes as the broader banking sector is facing pressure to do more to stamp down on scams.
Australians lost $2.74 billion to scams last year, with $11 million lost to bank impersonation scams from January to September.
Yahoo Finance has spoken to multiple bank customers who have lost their life savings after they were called up by scammers impersonating bank staff and persuaded to hand over banking codes.
From October, new rules mean it will be compulsory for UK banks to reimburse fraud victims who have been tricked into sending money to scammers except in cases of gross negligence or fraud.
In comparison, Australian banks do not generally reimburse customers who have handed over their personal information to scammers, with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission finding only 2 to 5 per cent of losses were compensated by the banks.
The Consumer Action Law Centre has been calling on the government to implement mandatory reimbursement of customers’ money lost to scams.
“Our view is that if reimbursement was mandatory, the banks and institutions would be really incentivised to put the resources into protecting consumers' money,” policy officer Rose Bruce-Smith told Yahoo Finance.
The Australian Banking Association has argued against mandatory reimbursement of scam victims. It has claimed this could increase scamming losses because customers could become complacent.
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