The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has announced it will officially launch its anti-scam technology ‘Scam Indicator’ nearly eight months after its pilot, as well as share its proprietary ‘NameCheck’ service with other payments processing businesses.

Scam Indicator, co-developed by CBA and Telstra and debuted in a pilot launch in March this year, is designed to detect in real-time whether a customer may potentially be on a scam call.

The tool makes use of a Telstra API that CBA can call upon to check whether customers are engaged in what the telco has flagged as a high-risk call. The bank’s scam team can then contact the customer or put in additional checks, helping to prevent a potential payment to scammers.

Scam Indicator was conceived in partnership with Quantium Telstra, the telco’s AI development arm, which worked in close consultation with CBA on the technology’s design and development.

CBA chief executive Matt Comyn recognised the significant “work that needs to be done” to develop these technologies, stressing that collaborations with ecosystem partners are “hugely important” for the bank.

He said CBA is dedicated to sharing learnings and collaborating widely to build out a “whole-of-ecosystem” approach to combating scams.

“Bringing the strength of different players together provides us with a better chance of stopping the scammers,” Comyn said.

“This type of crime is constantly evolving, so to combat it effectively we must coordinate across financial institutions, telcos, government, social media and digital platforms.”

The latest data from ScamWatch, the ACCC’s scam reporting service, reveals Australians have so far this year lost more than $92 million to phone scams – the most of any single scam delivery method, including social networking sites ($78 million), email ($64 million) and mobile apps ($56 million).

As promised during its initial unveiling, CBA has also announced its NameCheck service is now available for other businesses to make use of and embed in their systems.

NameCheck enables customers to check and green-light whether the name and account details they have entered appear correct before they make a payment.

Since its introduction in March this year, CBA estimates that the technology has helped prevent more than 10,000 payments, totalling upwards of $38 million, being lost to scammers.

“We remain committed to playing our part to address this national priority alongside leading businesses, government, and the broader community. Working collaboratively with all sectors is essential and means that we are all able to do better for the Australian community.

“It is why we are making our industry-leading NameCheck technology available to other organisations who can help to make payments safer and more reliable,” Comyn said.