The Commonwealth Bank and Telstra have teamed up for a new pilot they hope will protect both company’s customers against phone scams.
Scam Indicator is currently in the ‘proof-of-concept’ stage, and will be tested over the coming months. Early testing has shown this technology could help mitigate customer losses of up to $15-20 million.
The tool is “designed to detect certain high-risk scam situations in real time using a Telstra API that CBA will call on as part of its scam detection processes,” CommBank explains.
This enables CBA to check if a customer is on a phone call, which the bank explains is “the prime indicator that a scam is occurring.”
“This allows CBA the opportunity to try to contact the customer or put in additional checks. To protect the privacy of both parties, CBA is only able to access specific data points relating to scam prevention through the API, and does not have access to any other underlying customer data.”
Matt Comyn, Commonwealth Bank CEO said: “CBA and Telstra are committed to helping customers protect themselves from the financial losses and emotional trauma associated with scams. “We are focused on helping customers stay safe by improving early detection and prevention of scams. We have been working with Telstra to produce a machine-learning scams detection model, the first in a number of exciting initiatives from this partnership.
“We acknowledge that there is more to do given the rising volume and fast changing nature of scams. We’re committed to playing our part to address this national priority alongside leading businesses, government, and the broader community.”
Vicki Brady, Telstra CEO, added: “I’m often asked by people why Telstra can’t do more to protect against phone scams, and this is an example of us doing just that – working innovatively with CBA to put in place measures that will help stop this criminal activity in its tracks.
“Australians are under constant threat by scammers, who are getting increasingly sophisticated and persistent. Cyber security and addressing the issue of scams is a team effort, and we should be doing all we can to help stem the flow of this criminal activity.
“Part of this needs to be organisations working together like this to share knowledge and insights and partnering to develop solutions that can help better protect our customers.”
