SINGAPORE: People in Singapore have set aside close to S$15.8 billion (US$11.7 billion) in savings out of the reach of potential scammers through a security feature offered by banks here.
The amount, as of end-October, is up 76 per cent from the S$9 billion sum kept separately for protection under the “money lock” feature as of the end of July.
More than 181,000 customers have used the “money lock” option as of Oct 31, about a year after it was introduced, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said.
This feature, available at seven major retail banks, prevents locked funds from being transferred out, even if a scammer gains digital access to the account.
Currently, DBS, OCBC, UOB, Citibank, HSBC, Maybank and Standard Chartered Bank provide this security feature, MAS said.
“With this, the vast majority of the retail depositor base in Singapore is now able to utilise Money Lock for greater assurance,” a spokesperson said.
“Other retail banks have rolled out or are progressively looking to roll out Money Lock in the coming year.”
BENEFITS OF FEATURE
MAS said that those aged 30 to 49 used the feature the most, making up 43 per cent of all users.
Those above 50 formed the next biggest group, at 42 per cent, while those under 30 made up 15 per cent.
Any customer who wishes to withdraw their locked funds would have to visit designated automated teller machines to do so, said Mr Alex Goh, lead of UOB’s fraud and mule investigation team.
“This lapse of time is a good connective break for the customers, because they could perhaps reflect on the conversation or encounter and eventually realise that they could have fallen for a scam, and hence cease further transfers to any potential scammer,” he said.
“Even in the unfortunate event where the customer’s online account had been compromised, the funds that had been secured by Money Lock will not be available for any form of transfers,” he added.
His bank witnessed the benefits of the feature in August this year.
Through its post-transaction surveillance effort, the bank discovered that a customer had transferred money to a suspicious account thinking it was for investment purposes, when it was likely to have been a scam, Mr Goh said.
He had already transferred S$700, he added.
“Fortunately, in this case, he had secured about S$50,000 in his money lock account, and that left him with little liquidity,” he said.
“Otherwise, potentially, he might have transferred more funds to the alleged scammer, resulting in further losses.”
In response to CNA's queries, OCBC said that to date, more than S$9.8 billion in funds have been locked across over 86,000 accounts that customers have with the bank.
ADDRESSING SCAMS
In the first half of this year, Singapore lost at least S$385.6 million to scams, according to statistics released by the police.
This was about a 25 per cent increase in the amount lost, compared with the same period in 2023.
Investment scams were the most common, while the rest were mainly e-commerce and job scams.
Of the over 20,000 cases reported, 86 per cent involved victims being manipulated into transferring money to scammers.
In its report, the police said that MAS continues to work closely with the financial industry, the police and other government agencies in the fight against scams.
Apart from banks offering the “money lock” feature, this includes progressively removing the use of One-Time Passwords (OTP) for bank account login for digital token users to reduce phishing risk.
To hopefully bring the staggering figures down and protect the public, the police could also get powers to intervene, under a new law proposed last month.
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