National Australia Bank (NAB) says it has introduced new measures designed to better protect customers from scams.
National Australia Bank (NAB) has frozen more than A$270 million (about $184 million) in customer payments over the past four months that raised fraud concerns, according to a July 17 statement.
NAB blocks payments to 'high-risk' cryptocurrency exchanges
NAB said it had stopped transactions of an undisclosed amount with cryptocurrency platforms where scams were prevalent between March and July, without naming any of the exchanges.
Citing a report from the Australian Financial Crime Exchange in the last 30 days, NAB said 50% of the fraud cases reported to the agency were related to cryptocurrencies.
NAB group director of investigations and fraud Chris Sheehan said the scammers used cryptocurrency platforms to send the stolen funds overseas.
Australians lost A$221 million (more than $150 million) to cryptocurrency scams last year, making such fraud one of the fastest-growing threats in the country.
Other Australian banks, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ Bank and Westpac, have recently taken similar measures. Pro-cryptocurrency advocacy group Blockchain Australia expressed concerns that the restrictions could stifle the growth of the country's cryptocurrency industry.
Meanwhile, Australia isn’t the only country working to prevent malicious actors from using cryptocurrencies. Belarus is working on a law that would ban cryptocurrency trading outside of regulated exchanges in an effort to combat cybercrime.
NAB launches additional customer protection measures
Meanwhile, NAB said it had introduced new measures over the past six months to better protect its customers.
The bank explained that some of these measures include introducing payment reminders, blocking the use of links in suspicious text messages and taking action against deceptive behaviour.
The measures had the desired effect, with real-time payment prompts resulting in about 12% of payment abandonment. Prompts appear if a transaction does not fit the profile of a user's activity, designed to give customers time to review it before confirming it.
Despite slower transactions, the bank said 12% of its customers were satisfied with the measures as it protected them from fraud.
