The implications of establishing a lower threshold for banks to block or hold transactions deemed suspicious in their fraud detection efforts are significant. If banks set this threshold below S$50,000, they risk inundating their systems with excessive false alarms, which could lead to considerable frustration for many customers who may find their legitimate transactions unnecessarily interrupted.

Furthermore, a new Shared Responsibility Framework, effective from December 16, delineates the distribution of losses incurred from phishing scams among financial institutions, telecommunications providers, and consumers, highlighting the collaborative effort needed to combat such threats. In addition, banks are required to engage in real-time fraud monitoring to swiftly identify instances where a customer’s account may be compromised, particularly in cases of rapid fund depletion due to phishing attacks.

Striking a delicate balance between safeguarding customers and minimizing disruptions to genuine transactions is crucial for regulatory authorities.

• Threshold Value: Setting a value below S$50,000 for banks to block or hold transactions could generate too many false alerts and cause inconvenience for most banking customers. The authorities must balance protecting customers and the inconvenience posed to consumers conducting legitimate transactions.
• Shared Responsibility Framework: This framework, starting on Dec 16, outlines how losses from phishing scams will be shared among financial institutions, telecommunication companies, and consumers. It spells out specific duties for the companies, making them liable to pay if they have fallen short of their responsibilities.
• Real-Time Fraud Surveillance: Banks must perform real-time fraud surveillance to detect if a customer’s account is being rapidly drained due to a phishing scam. An account would be considered as rapidly drained of a material sum if it had an account balance of S$50,000 or more immediately prior to the unauthorized transaction, and if more than half of that account balance was transferred out within the last 24 hours.
• Balance Between Protection and Convenience: Authorities must balance protecting customers and the inconvenience posed to consumers conducting legitimate transactions. Setting a lower value could generate too many false alerts and result in inconvenience to the majority of customers.
• Additional Measures: Banks are expected to consider other factors in their fraud surveillance, such as a customer’s profile and potential vulnerability to scams, as well as spending patterns. These go beyond what is set out in the shared responsibility framework
• Cooling-Off Period: The framework requires financial institutions to impose a cooling-off period upon activation of digital security tokens. This 12-hour minimum period gives customers sufficient time to act on abnormal activities on their accounts while balancing the inconvenience to customers.
• Parental Oversight for Minors: Bank accounts for minors can only be opened by parents, either as joint accounts or accounts solely in the child’s name. These accounts have stricter safeguards, such as lower daily transaction limits, which parents can adjust.
• Implementation Timeline: Financial institutions will have up to mid-2025 to implement new fraud surveillance measures. These include real-time fraud surveillance systems that block unauthorized transaction

Lastly, banks are encouraged to incorporate a variety of factors into their fraud detection processes, including the individual customer’s profile and their susceptibility to scams, to enhance the effectiveness of their surveillance measures.

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