Teachers Mutual Bank will become Australia’s first customer-owned bank to pilot the Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA’s) NameCheck technology.

TMB will deploy the anti-scam security feature initially within its internet banking service this month, later extending the rollout to its banking apps.

NameCheck is expected to be rolled out to the bank’s other brands (Health Professionals Bank, Firefighters Mutual Bank, and UniBank) “in the coming months”, TMB said.

The function, first deployed by CBA in early 2023, enables customers to verify names and account details of payments receivers, helping to prevent mistaken payments.

CBA said the service, in the nine months between March and December 2023, prevented more than $200 million in scams and mistaken payments for the bank alone.

TMB Limited chief executive Anthony Hughes said participation in the pilot demonstrates the mutual’s capacity to “fast-track [the rollout of an] advanced scam prevention technology to our customers”.

“In fact, we’re the first customer-owned bank to implement a security feature to indicate if account details look right,” he said.

Hughes added: “This collaboration is a significant step towards the banking industry helping protect customers against scammers, mistaken payments, and fraudulent activity. By working collaboratively across the industry we can quickly deliver and achieve great outcomes for our customers.”

CBA general manager payments, Alison Chang, said the bank was “excited to extend our NameCheck technology to other trusted organisations including mutual banks”.

She added: “Offering NameCheck externally is part of our efforts to help Australian businesses become more resilient against the threat of scams.”

CBA has made a number of its in-house developed innovations available for use by peer banks here and abroad, including NameCheck and its AI-backed abuse detection model.