Australian banks have joined forces to launch a new Scam-Safe Accord to deliver a higher standard of protection for customers and put scammers out of business in Australia.

This Accord, between Australia’s community owned banks, building societies, credit unions and commercial banks is a comprehensive set of anti-scam measures across the entire industry.

At the heart of the Scam-Safe Accord is a $100 million investment by the industry in a new confirmation of payee system to be rolled out across all Australian banks. Confirmation of payee will help reduce scams by ensuring people can confirm they are transferring money to the person they intend to.

Design of the new system will start straight away and it will be built and rolled out over 2024 and 2025.

Banks have committed to introduce new and higher protections into their systems, meaning customers should expect more warnings and delays when paying someone new or increasing payment limits. To prevent misuse of accounts through identity fraud, all banks will uplift technology and controls, including all major banks introducing unique identification measures known as biometric checks when opening new accounts.

In addition, the Scam-Safe Accord includes a major expansion of intelligence sharing across the sector with all banks acting on scams intelligence from the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange by mid-2024, and joining the Fraud Reporting Exchange. This means critical information is shared across the banking sector at speed about scam transactions, improving the chances of preventing scams and recovering stolen funds.

Clients should expect more banks to start limiting payments to high-risk channels such as some crypto currency platforms to protect customers from possible theft.