NAB customers will be better protected against spoofing scams – also known as impersonation scams – as part of new measures to stop criminals infiltrating bank phone numbers and text message threads.

Working with telecommunications providers, NAB is placing bank phone numbers on the ‘Do Not Originate’ list to help reduce scam calls impersonating NAB numbers. Going further to protect customers, the bank has also added additional protections to reduce scam messages appearing in legitimate bank text message threads.

Since implementing changes in late December, NAB has seen a 50% reduction in these types of spoofing cases, leading to a 70% reduction in customer losses.

NAB Executive for Group Investigations and Fraud, Chris Sheehan, said these actions would make it harder for the criminals behind the scams but more work was needed, and customers must remain vigilant.

“Scams impersonating NAB and other recognised brands have continued to rise, and it’s clear we need more collaboration across business sectors to stop this occurring,” Mr Sheehan said.

“This is not just a problem for banks and telcos, this is an issue for every public and private organisation, and we urgently need a more coordinated national response to the issue.

“By working together in a ‘Team Australia’ response across business sectors, levels of government and the community we can reduce the impact these scams are having.”

Mr Sheehan said scams were a very serious and growing problem, with NAB just one of the many major organisations seeing an increase in reports by customers within the last year.

“Last year we saw a 38 per cent rise in scam reports from our customers. We take around 130,000 calls from customers every month and we’ve added around 140 people to the team who handle these calls so we can help people faster,” he said.

“Although we prevented more than $110m in scam losses for our customers last year, too many people are still falling victim and losing large amounts of money. That’s why we will continue to work hard to find more ways to protect our customers.”

Read here about a spoofing scam case study.

Each year NAB invests tens of millions of dollars into technology and expertise to prevent fraud and scams and protect customers, including biometric technologies, machine learning, 24/7 account monitoring, and hiring leading security experts.

Mr Sheehan – a former Australian Federal Police senior executive – said scams would continue to evolve, and education remained critical in the fight against criminals.

“There is no silver bullet to stopping scams. Scammers target individuals and essentially con us into handing over the keys to our accounts and money,” Mr Sheehan said.

“This means the individual customer is the first line of defence, and that’s why it’s critical we are all equipped with the knowledge and tools to see through scams and stop these criminals.”

NAB will never ask people to transfer their money to another account to keep it safe.

To help with education, NAB runs free monthly customer security webinars and has around one million visits on its Security Hub website each year. The Hub includes educational information to help customers see through different scam types and advice on how customers can stay safe. Customer education material is delivered in a variety of ways from Tik Tok, Instagram and Twitter to in-app messaging and email.

Customers can sign-up to monthly webinars for personal customers and business customers.

NOTES TO EDITORS

What is a spoofing scam? 

Spoofing scams involve criminals pretending to be a trusted brand or government agency to pressure an individual to provide personal information or make a payment.

Customer tips on staying safe from scammers:  

• Be alert. If you’re unsure whether a call is legitimate, hang-up and call-back using the number of the company on the publicly listed website.
• Stop before you click. Never click on a link and hand over your banking details or log in details – NAB will never ask you to do this.
• Always double-check payment details. Call the recipient to check their details before you send or use PayID which matches a number to the PayID.
• More information is available on NAB’s security hub website: www.nab.com.au/security.