Hong Kong, Oct. 10 (ZXS) -- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said at a briefing on October 12 that in the first nine months of this year, the HKMA received a total of 12 bank complaints involving fraud, nearly double the 9 cases in the whole of last year. The HKMA will introduce a "FPS" suspicious identifier alert to alert users before making a transfer.
Mr Yuen Kwok-hang, the Chief Executive of the HKMA, said that about seventy percent of the bank complaints received this year involving fraud were related to credit card transactions, while the rest involved remittance transactions, payment transactions and bank loans.
Following the introduction of a number of measures earlier, the HKMA's increase in bank complaints involving fraud slowed down, from about 1.7 times in the first quarter of this year to about 1.3 times in the third quarter of this year. However, Nguyen stressed that the situation of fraud complaints still deserves attention, and the HKMA will "step up" to introduce more effective measures.
He announced on the same day that the HKMA will launch the FPS Suspicious Identifier Alert in the next two months, with more than 2 banks and stored value operators participating in the scheme. If the FPS PIN, i.e. mobile phone number, email address and FPS Identifier, match the information labeled "High Risk Potential" in the Police Anti-Fraud Device, the user will be warned before confirming the transaction.
The head of the HKMA, Lai Chiu Er, said that Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Company Limited will assist in the changes to the FPS system, and the participating institutions are conducting docking tests and will not be launched until the successful implementation is confirmed.
In addition, Nguyen said that the first phase of the "Interbank Information Exchange Platform" was launched in June this year, and since then it has been operating smoothly, with five banks currently involved in exchanging information on suspected fraud or money laundering companies, and the next step is to involve more banks. (End)