Banks review security measures as cyber crime menace grows
Criminals are getting more sophisticated, warn SA's major banks, as they pilot debit-order system DebiCheck to fight SIM-swap fraud
SA’s major banks are reviewing their online security measures to combat increasingly sophisticated cyber crime. Absa, which recently had to refund one of its clients the R3.1m stolen from his account as a result of SIM-swap fraud, says this is just an isolated incident. The banking group says it has had strong controls in place since 2017 and that customers who adopted the new safety features offered on apps and online, have not experienced SIM-swap fraud. Last week, the case of a Cape Town businessman who had R3.1m stolen from his account while he was out of the country made headlines.
On Friday, Ulrich Janse van Rensburg, head of fraud strategy for the bank’s retail and business banking said that for customers who had not adopted the new controls, it was now placing holds on accounts where a SIM-swap occurred. “SIM-swap fraud has been an isolated fraud type since the bank implemented the SIM-swap controls on the Absa banking application,” said van Rensburg. Standard Bank h...
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