HK bank scam complaints climb as AI tools weaponised

Deepfakes and generative AI use in scams are expected to increase.

About 2 in 3 (60%) banks in Hong Kong have seen scam-related customer complaints rise, according to KPMG.

Technology-enabled deception, including online shopping scams, investment scams and impersonation of officials, now accounts for the majority of cases reported to the police, KPMG said in its Hong Kong Banking Report 2026.

“The very AI technology the industry is deploying to disrupt financial crime is, in parallel, being weaponised against it,” said Chad Olsen, head of forensic services, Hong Kong SAR at KPMG China; and Sue Bradford, partner, forensic at KPMG Australia.

For customers, the most common grievances are dissatisfaction with reimbursement decisions, frustration at transactional friction, and a feeling that the bank could be doing more to protect them, KPMG said.

Deepfakes and generative AI use in scams are not yet prevalent but are universally expected by the banks to increase, it said.

Currently, use of these technologies is showing up in falsified KYC documents, fraudulent bank impersonation websites, multilingual phishing campaigns, and deepfake-driven investment scams featuring well-known public figures on social media.

Banks should be moving from rule-based, periodic controls towards perpetual, intelligence-led monitoring against fraud, KPMG said.

Banks in Hong Kong should also and engage more actively in the cross-institutional ecosystem regulators are clearly steering towards.