Westpac will become the first Australian bank to introduce fraud detection systems with its digital payment platforms.
Customers will be protected against increasing scams by adding extra steps to confirm their identity before making payments.
Stay up-to-date on the latest news with The National Briefing – keeping you in the loop with news as it hits:
A series of questions will be asked if Westpac detects a high risk of scam from the customer and payment details.
The bank’s algorithm will then determine if they payment is likely a scam and will forfeit the payment process.
Customers will then have to call the bank if they are processing a legitimate payment.
“The prompts will inject important friction into the payments process, helping alert customers ‘in the moment’,” Westpac CEO Peter King told the Herald Sun.
“We’ve seen examples of this implemented in banks overseas with really successful results.”
Mr King said the process would only add an additional minute to the payment process and would only come up for about one to two percent of flagged transactions.
Last year, Australians lost more than $3 billion to scams.
While the big four banks have introduced technologies to combat scammers, customers said it hasn’t been enough.