Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System steps up security measures to combat scams

Starting this Sunday, Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System will issue automatic alerts to users attempting to transfer money to dodgy accounts, as a security upgrade to address the rising trend of scams in the city.

The suspicious proxy alert model will be used by the city’s 35 banks and nine stored-value facilities and will trigger a warning when users enter the details of an account flagged as “high risk” by the police force’s Scameter search engine.

When a suspicious email, phone number or FPS identifier of an account is entered, a warning will be sent to notify the user that the FPS account they want to transfer money to is dangerous.

However, users would still be given a choice to proceed with the transaction.

Speaking at a press conference, Chief Superintendent Kelly Cheng Lai-ki of the police force’s cybersecurity and technology crime bureau said they recommend users halt the transaction should the alert pop up.

She said users are advised to ensure that the person who is receiving the funds is legitimate and trustworthy.

Her comments came as Hong Kong logged a 52.5 percent increase in the number of scams in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period in 2022, rising from 19,444 to 29,650.

The amount of money lost to scams was HK$4.99 billion, an increase of 47.6 percent compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Cheng said the accounts would only be flagged after they were proven to be involved in scams, adding that the force was confident that there would be no false alarms.