Aussie banks launch digital locks versus online fraud

Cybercriminals now use AI and deepfakes to scam people.

Australian banks have started rolling out digital lock and block capabilities that let their clients disable compromised accounts using their apps to fight rising digital fraud.

“We expect scammers to leverage emerging technologies like GenAI (generative artificial intelligence), deepfakes, and voice cloning to make their scams more convincing,” Shaq Johnson, head of customer protection at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ Bank), told Asian Banking & Finance.

Cyberattacks have become more sophisticated, with criminals now using AI and deepfakes to create hyper-personalised, intricate, and harder-to-detect scams, he said in an email.

An October 2024 study by the National Australia Bank found that 63% of Aussies experienced a cyberattack or data breach in the past 12 months. About 62% also said they were worried about their personal cybersecurity.

ANZ Bank’s Digital Padlock option, slated for a mid-2025 roll-out, will let customers quickly disable digital access and block credit and debit cards without calling their bank or going to a branch.

“Digital Padlock allows customers to lock their accounts immediately if they notice unauthorised activity or if they believe their account and personal information have been compromised,” Johnson said.

Another Australian bank, Westpac, has rolled out an equivalent service called SafeBlock.

In a statement, Westpac said it has invested more than $100m in scam prevention, and claims to have prevented scammers from stealing $400m.

Johnson said ANZ has invested in combating deepfake technology. Last year, it rolled out its CallSafe service, which allows digital banking customers using ANZ Plus to verify if they are speaking to ANZ staff. In turn, bank staff can authenticate customers’ identity. 

Since going live in November 2024, CallSafe has been used to authenticate customers more than 20,000 times.

Australian banks are not the first in the Asia-Pacific region to roll out digital lock capabilities for their customers. Banks in Singapore started a similar feature in November 2023 called “money lock.”

Two months into its launch, the feature was activated by 38,000 accounts in Singapore, with a total value of $2.5b (S$3.2b) locked up, according to January 2024 data from the Association of Banks in Singapore.