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Commentary: From 1 July, scam prevention becomes an evidence problem at payments speed: Trent Gunthorpe, General Manager, Pacific Region of ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide

According to Trent Gunthorpe, General Manager, Pacific Region of ACI Worldwide:

 

"The Scams Prevention Framework from 1 July marks a significant shift in how Australia addresses scams, moving from reaction to prevention and raising the bar for organisations across the scam ecosystem.

 

"Scams rarely originate inside a bank. They may start with a text message, social media advertisement or fraudulent investment website, but by the time a customer initiates a payment, the bank is often the last line of defence.

 

"Consumers increasingly expect banks, telecommunications providers and digital platforms to work together to identify risks earlier and intervene before funds leave an account. Australia has also built one of the world's most advanced real-time payments systems through the NPP, PayID and Osko, meaning institutions have only a small window to identify suspicious behaviour, make decisions and stop fraudulent transactions before funds move.

 

"The challenge from today is ensuring scam detection and intervention can operate at the same speed as the payments themselves."

 

Accountability and evidence

"One of the biggest changes under the framework is the focus on demonstrating preventative action. 

“Organisations will need to show not only what protections existed, but how effectively those protections were applied before a scam occurred, because in a real-time payments environment accountability ultimately comes down to evidence."

 

"Artificial intelligence is becoming a critical part of that capability. According to ACI Worldwide's global survey on fraud and financial crime, 51% of organisations have already deployed AI for fraud prevention, while a further 47% are implementing AI capabilities expected to go live within the next 24 months. AI is rapidly shifting from a competitive advantage to a core requirement for effective fraud and scam prevention."

 

Collaboration between banks, telcos and digital platforms

"Many scams begin well before a payment is initiated, whether through a text message, phone call, social media advertisement or fake investment platform. 

 

"The effectiveness of the framework will depend on whether intelligence can be shared quickly enough to disrupt a scam before a payment is executed. That's a very different challenge from investigating a scam after the money has already gone."

 

Lessons from overseas markets and measuring success

"Internationally, regulators are increasingly making organisations accountable for scam outcomes, not just scam processes. The UK's authorised push payment reimbursement regime and Singapore's Shared Responsibility Framework have both raised the cost of failing to prevent scams.

 

"Australia's framework reflects the same shift. The organisations that succeed will be those that can identify threats and intervene before money moves, because ultimately the measure of success is simple: fewer Australians losing money to scams."

 

About us:

ACI Worldwide (www.aciworldwide.com) is a real-time payments technology company helping organisations move and protect money securely through software for intelligent payments orchestration, fraud prevention, real-time payments, account-to-account payments, bill payments, merchant payments, and central infrastructure.

ACI works with banks, merchants, billers, financial institutions and payment infrastructure providers. With 50 years of payments expertise, ACI supports customers in 94 countries, including the world’s top 10 banks, hundreds of financial institutions, more than 80,000 merchants, and 3,000 bill-payment organisations.

 

Contact details:

Priyanka Dogra

[email protected]

0410 593 587