Unmasking scammers

In less than a month thousands of everyday Australians have helped unmask online scammers.

“At ANZ, we believe the best way to battle this modern scourge is through collaboration and partnerships — where banks, customers and other sectors work together as a united front, against sophisticated criminal networks.”

It follows our announcement introducing the Confirmation of Payee (CoP) feature which empowers our customers to instantly identify suspicious digital payments, a common scammers tactic, enabling them to stop and think, before they hit send.

Since CoP was launched, ANZ has seen 143,303 payments abandoned by customers after being presented with a mismatch result.10,040 of those abandoned payments were going to accounts listed on the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX).

The scammer’s business model often involves tricking innocent people into transferring large sums into accounts controlled by them.

The CoP innovation helps ANZ customers identify suspicious accounts by giving them a new level of transparency - being able to see if the account details they have entered matches that held by the payee’s bank.

If a mismatch occurs, our customers immediately get alerted that they should check the recipient details and are warned about the risk of scams.

The community working together

Why are innovations like the CoP so effective?

At ANZ, we believe the best way to battle this modern scourge is through collaboration and partnerships — where banks, customers and other sectors work together as a united front, against sophisticated criminal networks. By working in partnership, we can make it harder for scammers to succeed.

Our recently announced collaborations with BioCatch Trust – the world’s first inter-bank financial crime intelligence-sharing network –  is an important step towards combatting scams as a collective. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, the need for proactive scam and fraud prevention has never been more critical. 

I have previously discussed the importance of a comprehensive anti-scammer strategy that combines legislation, public education, technology, data and intelligence sharing.

By embracing this model, Australia is setting a new global standard to disrupt criminal networks.

Part of our role at ANZ is to build products and features which leverage advanced technologies, empowering customers to take control of their own security and financial wellbeing.

A good example of this is ANZ’s recently launched Digital Padlock feature in the ANZ App, Internet Banking and ANZ Plus App, which allows customers to disable digital access to their accounts and block their cards with a few clicks. Activating the digital padlock will also notify ANZ’s fraud monitoring system, Falcon, of any suspicious activity.

Stop. Check. Protect.

This month, ANZ joins the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) in their Stop. Check. Protect. campaign during Scams Awareness Week 2025.

This initiative is designed to raise awareness, educate customers, and reinforce the critical steps everyone should take to stay safe from scams. 

We ask our kids to “stop, look, listen, think” when they cross the road – this is the digital version we need to inculcate in ourselves and loved ones. Online safety habits should be as instinctive as looking both ways before you cross the street.

Changing state of play

As we close one door to scammers they adapt and try to come in through another.

Reported scam incidents in Australia from January to May 2025 have decreased compared to the same period last year, according to NASC’s Scamwatch.

This is a promising sign that awareness efforts are making a difference.

It also follows data showing Australians experienced $2.03 billion of combined reported losses to scams in 2024, a 25.9 per cent decrease from 2023, according to Scamwatch data released in March this year.

This is reflected by ANZ’s own data. Between October last year and June this year, ANZ customer losses fell by 15 per cent.

During this period, ANZ successfully prevented and recovered over $100 million in scam-related funds.

But just as we get better at what we are doing, the scammers adapt their approach and increase the sophistication of their attacks.

For instance, the reported financial losses in the period from October to June show phishing scams saw a staggering 150 per cent increase in reported losses, romance scams rose by 23.5 per cent and investment scams climbed by 2.5 per cent. 

These figures highlight the growing complexity and emotional manipulation behind modern scams, making education and proactive protection more important than ever. 

But the good news is our approach is working and through dedicated education and awareness, the broader community is helping to deliver positive results.

From October to June, ANZ Plus customers who kept default ANZ Scam Safe protections enabled were 19 times less likely to fall victim to scams than those who disabled at least one of them, according to our ANZ data.

At the same time ANZ’s First Responders team resolved 93.5 per cent of scam-related calls at first contact, handling over 150,000 calls in total.

Since launching CallSafe in 2024, ANZ has securely authenticated almost 30,000 customer calls.

Shaq Johnson is Head of Customer Protection at ANZ