Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Requiring Financial Institutions to Display Popup Reminders Whenever Clients Perform Overseas Remittances, by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law

Question:

Mr Don Wee: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs in order to prevent more Singaporeans from being scammed, whether the Ministry can work with MAS to require financial institutions to display popup reminders whenever their clients perform an overseas remittance via their mobile phone and computer.

Answer:

1. 1. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been working with MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) to develop measures to protect clients of financial institutions from scams.2. To prevent banking clients from falling prey to scams while they are completing online transactions, many banks now display messages in their One-Time-Password (OTP) notifications to warn customers not to share their OTPs with anyone. The banks also prominently display warnings about scams on their websites and mobile applications to increase their customers’ awareness and vigilance.3. Other measures that have been introduced include multi-factor authentication to verify customers’ identities, transaction alerts to notify customers of their online transactions, and fraud monitoring.4. MHA, MAS and ABS are working together as part of the Inter-Ministry Committee on Scams (IMCS) to explore other means of detecting and flagging suspicious transactions to prevent Singaporeans from falling prey to scammers. In particular, ABS member banks are working to implement more advanced fraud detection and transaction monitoring systems to identify suspicious and unusual transactions. There are also ongoing efforts to improve information sharing and coordination within the industry to facilitate recovery of scammed funds. ABS is also working with SPF to develop an online scam quiz to raise customers’ knowledge of scams and cyber hygiene before the opening of internet banking accounts.5. We will study the Member’s proposal on pop-up reminders for overseas remittance.