A new Member’s Bill to increase protections from scams, including for vulnerable customers, is being introduced to the Ballot today.

Scams are becoming much more sophisticated and harder to spot, and Kiwis are losing their hard-earned money.

“Banks and other financial institutions have the tools to prevent or detect many scams,” Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said.

“Some are doing well, but others need encouragement to use them to protect their customers.

“New Zealand is lagging behind other nations in requiring matching of the names of payees with accounts. Scammers currently use this loophole by saying money is being put into one person’s account when it is in fact going into another’s – the banks should close it.

“The Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment (Anti-scam) Amendment Bill will shift some of the onus so that banks are incentivised to use the tools available to them to better protect customers’ money and implement changes like account/payee matching.

“Financial institutions who do not take reasonable steps to protect their customers should meet the costs of scams that they could have prevented. There will be exceptions to this if customers act recklessly or dishonestly, or don’t follow the instructions of the financial institution given directly to them.

“Scams and fraud are rapidly increasing, they’re getting more and more clever and everyone should work together to protect New Zealanders’ savings, including the banks themselves,” Duncan Webb said.

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