ANZ Bank has announced it will implement a range of new security measures to protect customers from scams, including a new artificial intelligence-backed Scam Scoring model.

Among the newly announced anti-scam measures to be introduced by ANZ in 2024 include:

• An increase in personalised warning messages to inform customers of high-risk transactions or activities;
• A new AI-backed Scam Scoring model, which ANZ said will complement its current security systems and boost scam detection;
• The launch of a new dedicated specialist team and a hotline for victims of scams;
• New algorithms to increase the bank’s mule detection capability, which promises to “further restrict the movement of scam proceeds to organised crime”; and
• New personalised education resources for customers.

The new anti-muling algorithms, which target bank accounts being used to funnel funds to criminals, provide an upgrade to the behavioural biometric technologies introduced by the bank mid-last year to recognise money mules and mule accounts.

ANZ’s head of customer protection Shaq Johnson said the bank expects this year “to see a shift in the way scammers operate, from targeting card transactions over digital fast payments, to increasingly targeting peer-to-peer and other emerging payment channels to circumvent traditional payment controls”.

He added: “Cyber events, data breaches, scams, and fraud activity continue to be a challenge to the community in 2023, however we’re seeing results from our response.”

ANZ boasts that its people and systems prevented the loss of more than $106 million to cyber criminals last year, a 38 per cent increase from 2022.

The bank also recorded a 43 per cent reduction in customer losses to scams in the last quarter of FY23.