Commonwealth Bank (CBA) and Vodafone have announced a new intelligence sharing pilot designed to help protect customers from rising SMS scams. As stated in the press release, the pilot sees Vodafone and CBA sharing SMS scam-related intelligence in near real-time, allowing the telco to identify and disrupt scammers.

At the same time, the bank may implement proactive blocks on suspected fraudulent payments. The latest data shows that fraudulent text and email messages are the number one scam trend impacting CBA customers. This phenomenon, otherwise known as ‘phishing’, involves fraudsters tricking unsuspecting customers to click on an embedded link and share their online banking and card details and personal information.

The press release continues to highlight that not only are scammers becoming increasingly sophisticated, but there is an uptick in attempted and successful scams at certain times of the year, such as the holiday season. With this heightened risk, it is crucial people remain alert for potential scams, including those delivered via SMS with messages imitating major courier or postal companies. This pilot allows the companies to proactively investigate and analyse the latest SMS scams in near real-time to ultimately help disrupt, detect, and block fraudulent payments.

The announcement comes as the latest scam statistics published by Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre in November 2023 show text messages as the most popular delivery method used by fraudsters so far this year, with more than USD 24.5 million being lost to this type of scam. According to officials from Vodafone, the company has blocked more the 67.8 million SMS scams from reaching Australians, in 2023 alone. Its analysis shows fraudsters are scheming up new ways to scam customers out of their hard-earned cash in the lead up to the holiday season with Vodafone blocking more than 17.6 million SMS scams in September and October, a 45 per cent year-on-year increase.

CommBank has invested about USD 750 million to help protect and defend its customers from cyber security threats, financial crime, and fraud and scams. By collaborating closely with Vodafone, the bank is focused on helping to minimise financial harm associated with the ever-evolving threat of SMS scams. More about Commonwealth Bank Based in Australia, CBA recently partnered with Bendigo Bank and Satori to pilot its NameCheck tech to protect Australians from scams and mistaken payments.

NameCheck leverages advanced technology and CBA’s available payment data to indicate whether the provided account details are correct. CBA introduced NameCheck to retail customers and on some payments made by business customers earlier in 2023, and following its March launch, the tech has helped prevent over 10,000 scam payments and reduce mistaken payments. In October 2023, CBA partnered with technology solution provider NextGen to deliver Open Banking for mortgage brokers in Australia.

Throughout this partnership, the Commonwealth Bank is set to provide Open Banking services for mortgage brokers within NextGen’s loan lodgement platform, ApplyOnline. The product was developed to auto-populate customer data and information, as well as to generate customised bank statements by using government-regulated data sources that ensure the quality of the application is high. .