Fraud alert system to cover bank transactions

An alert that warns people using the Faster Payment System (FPS) they could be about to lose money to fraudsters is being extended to transactions made in banks or via online banking. From August 4, bank customers will receive an alert if they are on the verge of making a transfer to a recipient flagged as high-risk by the authorities. Carmen Chu, executive director in banking supervision at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said the extended alert system will offer people more protection from scammers. "After this expansion, the coverage of bank transfer transactions will increase from 35 percent to 84 percent. It basically has a wide coverage of the fund transfer transactions, and it will enhance the protection to customers to send the high-risk alerts to them to warn them before they execute a transaction," Chu said. Raymond Lam from the police's Cyber Security and Technology Bureau said the fraud alert system has been effective since its launch in November last year. "As of the end of June this year, our system has issued more than 650,000 high-risk alerts. That is an average of one warning for every 30 seconds, which is effectively reminding people of the risk of a scam," Lam said. "Projected from the average loss of about HK$1,500 per each scam case, and we anticipate the high-risk alert has so far issued a warning of scams [involving] nearly HK$1 billion."