Datuk Marzunisham Omar
KOTA KINABALU (Oct 12): A Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) survey found that one-third of Malaysians share their banking information with others.
BNM Deputy Governor Datuk Marzunisham Omar said that the BNM survey was part of their Financial Capacity and Inclusion Survey 2021, which found that one-third of Malaysians were actually sharing the information about their ATM card number as well as their online banking password with their close friends.
“By right, you should not share this,” he said to the Borneo Post in an interview after attending the launching of the BNM Financial Literacy exhibition at Sabah Museum here on Wednesday.
Also worrying was that two-third of Malaysians don’t even bother if the websites they were visiting and carrying out online transactions were the right ones.
“We found out that two-third of Malaysians who carry out online transactions like at (e-commerce website) Shoppee, don’t actually check the website to make sure it is the right one. We just take it for granted,” he said.
“This is worrying. We hope that the public will be more aware of scam activities and so on,” he added.
Marzunisham said that for the first seven months of 2022, 12,092 scam cases were reported to the police involving a financial loss of about RM414.8 million in Malaysia.
In the context of Sabah, 535 cases were reported to the police with a loss of RM21.3 million from January to July, 2022.
“This comprises seven types of online scams including online purchase, loan scams, Macau scams and love scams … the modus operandi is you receive an email stating that it is from your bank and there is an attachment. Please don’t click on the link (and attachment) from unverified sources,” he reminded.
He also said that scammers are even resorting to calling people claiming to be from the police or the Inland Revenue Board and even from Bank Negara.
“Don’t entertain them. Don’t give any personal information,” he advised.
Marzunisham added that the Malaysia banking system and online banking system, including the payment system, are safe.
He said that BNM studies the techniques and modus operandi adopted by scammers and notifies banks about these techniques and changes the scammers deployed so that they could strengthen their protection in online account and banking.
The deputy governor also said that in the last six months, BNM had noticed that scammers aimed for users to download certain (online) applications into their handphones.
He explained that these applications contain malware that hijacks the short messaging message (SMS) in the handphone so that the OTP sent by the banks for online transactions goes to the scammers’ handphones instead of the account owner’s handphone.
Marzunisham urged the public to be wary of the applications they download, including links, warning the public that some of the applications are unsafe and contain malware.
Nevertheless, BNM has deployed a solution to the matter by asking banks to move away from sending the OTP one-time passcode through SMS, he said.
“Now, we ask them (the banks) to move away from sending through SMS. If you use Maybank, the bank now uses Secure2u, it will not send to SMS but to your phone.
“We have asked banks to allow only one registered secured device to receive all the passcodes from banks, so that even when scammers hijack your SMS, they cannot get the information because it goes only to the registered device,” he said.
He added that BNM is also asking banks to employ a cooling off period whereby whenever a bank user registers a new device, there will be a cooling period of several hours before any transactions can be made on the new device.
He said that although this would cause some inconveniences for users, it will hinder scammers from doing their damage such as altering banking limits and so on.
At the same time, BNM, together with the police and banking institutions are taking measures and actions to further strengthen the defenses against financial scams, he said.
“Financial scams techniques are evolving and so the measures and defenses have to be strengthened continually and we are doing this so the banking industry, the banking institutions at Bank Negara and the police are committed to ensuring that the banking industry, banking transactions, online transactions remain safe and secure,” he said.
He added that BNM had come up with additional measures to address financial scams.
“We know that it is also important that enforcement is also being taken to arrest the culprit and those involved in this.
“In the recent budget, the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) set-up was announced. This is a collaboration between the police, Bank Negara, MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission), banking institutions and telecommunication providers, to help victims and to help trace the fund that was scammed and the perpetrators.
“The idea is that when someone falls victim to a scam, they can call the scam response centre,” he said.
Marzunisham added that the NSRC will immediately trace where the money went to and will put a hold on it.
“Subsequently, the police will come and investigate. And as much as possible, we will try to return the money back to the victim.
“So, what is important here is that when you have already become a victim of the scammer, it is very important to call your bank or call the NSRC,” he said.
He said that the special number for the public will be announced in the near future.
However, BNM wants to stop people from becoming victims to scammers, he said.
“This is where the online banking protection is strong, and second is that we ourselves as customers take steps to protect ourselves from becoming victims. Don’t share your password and so on. Don’t download applications you are unsure of. Be careful.”
The deputy governor added that in most of the scam cases, BNM sees that it was due to compromised personal information, which was why awareness was important.
He also said that in Malaysia, there is a strict confidentiality protection on banking information, called the secrecy law in the finance service.
He said that if any banking staff is found to have breached the secrecy of consumer information, they can be prosecuted under the Financial Services Act 2013 Section 133 with imprisonment of up to five years or fine up to RM10 million. All staff in the banking industries are subject to it.
“Having said that, we notice that the majority of scam cases are where personal information has been compromised,” he said.
Marzunisham said that they hope to reduce the number of scam cases but noted that the entire community needs to play their part as well.
“Bank Negara and banks are doing their part. We know that police are also doing their part. Equally important is the public is doing their part. We must be vigilant and not fall victim to the scammers,” he said.
Marzunisham also spoke on the issue of ‘account mule’ which he said that it was a worrying trend and a concern as well.
He explained that some members of the public, in particular students and youngsters, have been duped to open bank accounts, although some have done so willingly, for the use of scammers and criminals to take money.
To curb the incidence of mule accounts, he said banks have been asked to strengthen their assessment of people who are opening new bank accounts.
The banks are also required to monitor the banking account closely and if they suspect suspicious transactions, they are required to lodge a report to the Bank Negara, he said.
“We (BNM) and the police advise the public not to become mules and open accounts to give the (banking) card to others because the modus operandi is we notice the criminals give money to the people to open the account. But don’t do it. Seriously don’t, we advise,” he said.
He warned that action will be taken against the mule accounts and the people behind the mule accounts.
Marzunisham also said that the World Bank recently reported that 79 per cent of Malaysian adults use digital payment.
“We do a lot of online banking transactions. I think online payment is good but when we move into this, we have to be more disciplined and undertake some measures to protect ourselves such as being careful of websites, the applications we download and so on.”
For more, see the BNM financial crime exhibition.