Banks in Hong Kong have detected 2,686 scam cases in the first nine months of this year, a 160 percent increase compared to the same period last year, while losses from related fraud have decreased, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Executive Director Raymond Chan of the HKMA outlined five key measures implemented to combat financial crimes, including the Banking (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 effective November 3, which allows banks to share account information under specific circumstances to alert each other about potential payment risks.
Currently, 10 banks are sharing corporate client information, with plans to expand to individual clients and include more financial institutions.
The second initiative involves sharing data from the police's anti-fraud database Scameter with banks and cryptocurrency operators, with 16 financial institutions already participating in the pilot program. All 28 retail banks and five major stored value facility licensees will join by year-end.
Other measures include banks sharing methods for handling fraudulent accounts, with guidelines issued for establishing dynamic assessment systems to identify potential scam victims. Banks have assisted 80 high-risk customers in stopping payments to fraudulent accounts, even refusing transactions when customers insisted on proceeding.
The Communications Authority has also been active in fraud prevention, with Assistant Director Sidney Tsan reporting that 580 phone numbers have been suspended and 4,900 websites blocked in the first nine months of this year.
The authority has intercepted over 210,000 suspicious calls last month alone and more than 6.8 million since 2023. Additionally, 18,000 services were suspended last month for suspicious calling patterns, bringing the total to 1.47 million over two years.
The SMS Sender Registration Scheme, which requires organizations to send messages from registered names starting with "#", now has over 700 registered entities helping citizens identify legitimate messages.
