Here at MOVE Bank, we take the safety and security of our members and their personal information seriously. When it comes to financial crimes and scams, education and awareness plays a vital role in our overall strategy to protect our members.
To learn more about what exactly the team here at MOVE Bank does to safeguard our members against financial crime – let’s talk to Madison and Belinda, our experts on the topic!
What exactly is financial crime?
“Financial Crime is generally defined as any activity that involves fraudulent or dishonest behaviour for the purposes of personal financial gain.” says Belinda.
In 2021, Australian’s lost over $323 million to scammers conducting financial crimes. “These crimes may be carried out by individuals, corporations, or by organised crime groups” Madison explains.
Common types of financial crime includes investment scams, identity theft, and remote access scams.
What is MOVE Bank’s approach to managing financial crime?
At MOVE Bank security is a top priority. “We take a very stringent approach in making sure we do the best we can do to keep our members safe from financial crime,” says Madison.
“We have a variety of countermeasures in place and understand the importance of educating our members on things to watch out for.” Equipping our members with the tools to spot and avoid scams is important and empowers people to know that they can also take action to help protect themselves.
What measures do we have in place to help protect our members from scammers?
“We have a number of procedures and protocols in place to ensure we are keeping our members and staff safe from fraudulent activity,” explains Belinda.
Such measures include One Time Passwords, daily transaction monitoring, security questions when talking with members and a thorough onboarding process for new members.
What different types of scams and financial crime do we see, and what is the most common?
“There is a variety of different financial crimes people can fall victim to” says Madison. “Examples of these include money laundering, terrorist financing, elder abuse, and identity theft.”
Belinda goes on to say, “One of the most common scams we see at MOVE is transfer fraud. Scammers may post as a legal professional or government agency and gain remote access to an account, or coach members through increasing bank limits and completing the transfer of funds.”
Madison discusses remote access scams, “Scammers will use a variety of methods to contact victims to convince them that they have a computer or internet problem and that they need to buy or install new software to fix the problem.”
Remote access scams cost Australian’s over $16 million last year alone, and can be devastating to those affected due to the level of access scammers achieve. “Malware will often be installed or remote access provided resulting in the scammer having full access to their computer and personal information from their remote location.”
If you want to learn more about how to identify and protect yourself from scams and financial crime, be sure to keep an eye out across our social media and website during Bank Smart, Bank Safe week (28 March – 3 April 2022)!
*Statistics sourced from scamwatch.gov.au as of 15 February 2022
