Australia's banks have united this month to declare war on scammers. A higher standard of protection for customers has been promised, powered by a $100 million investment by financial institutions and formalised as a new Scam-Safe Accord. The investment will fund the design, build and rollout of a new industry-wide 'confirmation of payee' system.

This is name-checking technology that helps banking customers to know who they are dealing with and mitigating the possibility of people being manipulated into paying a scammer when the name doesn't match. Identity fraud is also in the crosshairs, with the major banks committing to using at least one biometric check for new individual customers opening accounts online by the end of 2024. These checks can be either detectable to a person's behaviour or involve a check of a customer's face or fingerprint, enabling banks to use these characteristics to verify their customer's identity.

These new measures come at a critical time as scams become increasingly sophisticated, representing a growing threat to Australian consumers and businesses. The problem is getting worse: in 2022, 65 per cent of Australians were exposed to a scam attempt, and that year Australians suffered financial losses to scams of at least $3.1 billion - an 80 per cent annual increase. Although banks play a key role in preventing scammers from taking the hard-earned money of everyday Australians, they are only one part of the solution. It is therefore encouraging to see ASIC outline its new capability to take down scam websites. Since July 2023, ASIC has disrupted scam activity by initiating takedowns of more than 2,500 investment scam and phishing websites.

LAB Group is proud of the role it plays to help protect banking customers and service providers from scams. Through LAB Verify, we accelerate new customer verification directly into a digital onboarding journey. Organisations across multiple industries and geographies use LAB Verify to validate AML, KYC, KYB and PEP Sanctions for all entity types through an API solution.LAB Verify integrates biometric verification as part of a suite of best in class anti-fraud measures. Our flexible framework puts organisations in the driver's seat to tailor a solution to manage their customer verification and risk assessment requirements with a single interface. Best of all, LAB Group customers don't have to migrate from existing compliance platforms and they can add more functionality over time as they need it.