Singapore has proposed a new bill to prevent unwilling victims from banking online. cases of scams continue to increase despite the multiple guarantees in place.

The country’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the Protection from Scams Bill will allow law enforcement agencies to order banks to restrict an individual’s banking transactions, “if he there is a reasonable belief” that the individual intends to transfer money to fraudsters.

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

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

The number of scams and cybercrime cases last year increased by 49.6%, with scams accounting for 92.4% of all cases.

Singapore had introduced several measures to try to stem growth, including a mandate for local banks to provide a “kill switch” so customers can freeze their accounts if they suspect their accounts have been compromised. A “money lock” feature has also been introduced to allow bank customers to designate an amount of money that cannot be transferred from their account via online channels.

These measures, however, as well as efforts to educate the public on how to stay safe, have had little impact as cases of scams involving victims who willingly authorize transactions to fraudsters remain numerous, the MHA said. Some 86% of scams reported in the first half of 2024 involved such victims, with the fraudsters not taking direct control of victims’ accounts. Instead, they convinced the victims to transfer the funds themselves.

Victims in some of these cases were told by police, banks or family members that they were being scammed, but they still chose to proceed with the money transfers, the ministry said. . These included victims of identity theft scams and investment scams, each of whom recorded the highest average losses of SG$116,534 and SG$40,090 per case , respectively, during the first half of 2024.

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

Effective for up to 30 days at a time, these orders can only be issued for fraud cases conducted via digital or telecommunications channels, such as text messages or online communications.

When issued with a restriction order, individuals will not be able to make money transfers through their online and mobile bank accounts, Singapore’s PayNow payment platform and in person at a bank branch. They will also face restrictions on ATMs and credit facilities, including credit card transactions and personal loan services.

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

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However, restriction orders can also be issued against a financial services provider from this group of seven, if there is “reasonable suspicion” that an account managed by the organization is involved in fraud.

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

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

Singapore also in September made the use of facial recognition as authentication mandatory for “higher risk” banking transactions, with retail banks required to roll out the Singpass facial verification feature over the next three months. 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 more difficult for fraudsters to hijack a customer’s digital token by setting it up on their own device using phished credentials, such as SMS messages or one-time passwords.

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Google also presented last month 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 are among the most common methods used by fraudsters to contact their victims in the country, where more than 700 cases of SMS scams were reported in the first half of 2024. Most of them involved fraudsters operating from abroad.

Google is also working to prevent Google Play Protect from being turned off during active audio and video calls. This aims to mitigate fraudsters’ attempts to convince victims to disable the security feature, which would allow the former to bypass security measures and install malicious applications.