Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, Andrew Bayly.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The government plans to bring together public sector agencies and banking industry stakeholders in a bid to step up anti-fraud efforts in New Zealand.

To mark the start of Fraud Awareness Week, it has been revealed that New Zealanders have lost almost $200 million in the past year to scammers.

Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs Andrew Bayly said the figure was likely higher, with only around one in five scams being reported.

“People who think they’ve been scammed are ashamed. In fact, they shouldn’t be. We need more people to admit it and say they’ve been scammed, because when it happens , agencies can act and deal with it,” he said.

“When people don’t talk about it, that’s when other people get scammed, if I can use that word, it’s just about being open about it and educating people.”

New Zealand does not have a centralized, instant method for reporting scams, which has hampered efforts to respond quickly. Bayly said detection, prevention and response had largely fallen between the cracks of industry and government.

“We don’t have good enough coordination, both within government and within industry portals, and I’m referring to telecommunications, banking and social media providers.”

Bayly was appointed senior minister responsible for coordinating activities and bringing together industry and government partners. He said it would involve three steps:

• Coordinate work between ministerial portfolios and public sector agencies to improve information sharing.
• Collaborate with industry to develop industry solutions within specific sectors (e.g. banks) and across different sectors (such as information sharing between telecommunications and banks).
• Collaborate with ministerial counterparts in Australia and Singapore to establish a coordinated regional approach.

Bayly said in New Zealand people were more likely to be scammed through social media. But Australians were hit hard by SMS or SMS scams, while Singapore faced massive email URL scams.

New Zealand banks were expected to roll out beneficiary confirmation by the end of November, which Bayly said is a good start.

“But I also think it is the responsibility of the government to act and coordinate its activities,” he said.

“The most important thing I’ve found, talking to telcos and going into their contact rooms or security rooms, or through the bank, is to make sure we have “more transparent and immediate data transfer between industry groups, so people are much more aware of when things are happening and react much more quickly.”

Earlier this year, the banking sector called on the government to support an anti-scam center, which targets mule accounts.

Labor had also campaigned for an anti-fraud unit, which would have brought government and industry together in the Financial Markets Authority.

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