Cybercrime counterpunches are about to fly when Hong Kong’s financial services watchdog rolls out security measures for the online payment system that has been caught up in a surge of bank-related fraud cases in the city. While authorities and industry officials deserve praise for stepping up the fight against scammers, it is important that the public continues to do more to support such efforts.

Fraud cases linked to financial institutions doubled to almost 1,000 in the first nine months of the year, compared with about 550 for the whole of 2022. The revamped Faster Payment System (FPS) is expected to be ready within two months, offering improved notifications of fraud risks to users. Kitty Lai Hau-yee, head of financial infrastructure development at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said users would soon have an alert message displayed before they confirmed payment if the payee’s proxy IDs were listed as “high risk” on the police “Scameter” database.

Introduced in 2018, FPS allows users to transfer money using proxy identification such as mobile phone numbers or email addresses. The real-time monitoring system may help by flagging suspicious accounts and alerting potential fraud victims before money is deposited into the accounts of criminals. Such interventions have already helped. Authority officials said in one case a bank intercepted a fraudulent transaction worth about HK$4 million.

Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System to get new safeguards in wake of fraud increase

Of the 954 complaints related to banking fraud in the first nine months of 2023, about 70 per cent were related to credit card transactions and fraudulent reward point redemption schemes. Authority officials said a new scamming trend involved hacked personal messaging apps that were used to dupe victims into clicking links that instantly transfered funds to scammers.