Singapore wants police to stop stubborn victims from sending money to scammers

Singapore has proposed a new bill to block recalcitrant victims from making online banking transactions, as scam cases continue to climb despite multiple safeguards in place. 

The country's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the Protection for Scams Bill will allow law enforcement to issue orders for banks to restrict an individual's banking transactions, "if there is reasonable belief" the individual intends to make money transfers to scammers. 

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This will better arm the police to protect targeted victims of ongoing scams who refuse to believe they are being scammed, the ministry said in a statement.

Scams in Singapore have been on the rise over the past five years, growing almost five times to 46,600 cases in 2023, from 9,500 in 2019. Some SG$650 million ($489.61 million) was lost to scammers. 

The number of scams and cybercrime cases last year climbed 49.6%, with scams accounting for 92.4% of overall cases. 

Singapore had introduced several measures in a bid to stem the growth, including a mandate for local banks to provide a "kill switch" so customers can freeze their accounts should they suspect the accounts have been compromised. A "money lock" feature also was put in place to allow bank customers to designate a sum of monies that cannot be transferred out of their accounts via online channels. 

These measures, however, alongside efforts to raise public awareness on how to keep themselves safe have made little dent, as scam cases involving victims who voluntarily authorize transactions to scammers remain high, MHA said. Some 86% of reported scams in the first half of 2024 involved such victims, where scammers did not gain direct control of the victims' accounts. They instead convinced the victims to transfer the funds themselves.

The victims in some of these cases had been advised by the police, banks, or family members that they were being scammed, but still chose to proceed with the money transfers, said the ministry. These had included victims of government-official impersonation scams and investment scams, each of which clocked the highest average losses at SG$116,534 and $40,090 per case, respectively, in the first half of 2024. 

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Under the proposed bill, a police officer will determine whether to issue a restriction order based on the circumstances of each case, including assessing information provided by the targeted victims and their family members. 

In effect for up to 30 days at a time, such orders can be issued only for scam cases conducted via digital or telecommunication channels, such as SMS or online communications. 

When issued with a restriction order, individuals will be prevented from making money transfers via their online and mobile banking accounts, Singapore's payment platform PayNow, and in person at a bank branch. They also will experience restrictions at ATM and credit facilities, including credit card transactions and personal loan services.

Restriction orders will be issued by default to all seven domestic systemically important banks in Singapore, which are major retail banks that manage most of the consumer deposits in the country. These include Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, and Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

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However, restriction orders also can be given to a financial services provider out of this group of seven, if there is "reasonable suspicion" that an account managed by the organization is involved in a scam case. 

A restriction order can be extended at the end of the 30-day period, should the police decide more time is needed, and for another 30 days at a time, up to five extensions. 

Individuals named in a restriction order can appeal to the Commissioner of Police against the order. 

Singapore in September also mandated the use of facial recognition as authentication for "higher risk" banking transactions, with retail banks required to roll out the Singpass Face Verification feature over the next three months. The verification mode will be triggered in higher-risk scenarios to complement existing authentication methods for setting up digital tokens.

The move aims to make it tougher for scammers to hijack a customer's digital token by setting it up on their own device using phished credentials, such as SMS or one-time passwords. 

Also: Singapore and US pledge to combat online scams in cross-border cooperation

Google last month also introduced Android features to combat mobile scams in Singapore, including an opt-in service allowing users of the mobile platform to block messages from unknown international numbers on Messages. Text or SMS is among the most common methods scammers use to contact victims in the country, where there were more than 700 reported SMS scam cases in the first half of 2024. Most of these involved scammers operating from overseas.

Google also is working to prevent Google Play Protect from being disabled during active audio and video calls. This aims to mitigate attempts by scammers to convince victims to disable the safety feature, which would allow the former to sidestep security measures and install malicious apps.