(Singapore, March 2, 2020) If any specific bank accounts have been identified to be associated with scams, the Singapore Police Force will freeze the relevant bank accounts as soon as possible, said Mr Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Education and a board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
He made the comments on behalf of Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister and Minister in charge of MAS, in reply to safer banking issues.
He said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and our banks, have been working together to protect Singaporeans against these online crimes.
He said MAS has issued various regulations and guidelines related to the security of online transactions. For example, banks must implement multi-factor authentication so that scammers cannot perform online transactions using only the User IDs and passwords of their victims.
Fraud monitoring and detection systems are another prerequisite to facilitate timely detection and blocking of suspicious transactions. On a real-time basis, transaction alerts are sent to customers to allow them to quickly notify their banks of any unauthorised payment transactions. These security measures to curb unauthorised transactions, are now the industry norm in Singapore, he said.
Also, banks have also regularly reminded their customers not to disclose account details, User IDs, passwords or SMS OTPs to anyone, no matter who they claim to be. Bank customers have also been encouraged to maintain strong cyber hygiene by installing anti-virus software and regularly updating it.
“We freeze accounts suspected of receiving the proceeds from online scams… Doing so disrupts the scam operation and increases the chances of recovering victims’ monies,” he added.
Where the scam is cross border in nature, SPF will seek the co-operation of their foreign counterparts.
In 2017, Singapore established its Transnational Commercial Crime Task Force (TCTF) to investigate transnational scams such as China Officials Impersonation Scams, Internet Love Scams and Credit-for-Sex scams.
It actively shares information with foreign law enforcement agencies, and where possible, works with them to mount joint operations. Nine operations have been conducted since the set-up of TCTF, which resulted in at least 440 cases solved and the arrest of over 100 suspects regionally.
