KUALA LUMPUR (March 20): The National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) attended to 66,997 calls on online financial scams from the public in 2023, of which 25,991 calls were from scammed victims, according to Bank Negara Malaysia's (BNM) Annual Report 2023.

The number of reports or calls received about online financial scams is more than five times 2022's tally of 12,253 calls.

The NSRC opened 8,754 investigation papers involving cheating and freeze orders on targeted collection accounts amounting to RM69 million last year, and identified and disrupted 59,684 suspected mule accounts to prevent multiple layering of transactions to conceal the origin of stolen funds.

A mule account is an account that is used to receive and transfer funds acquired illegally on behalf of others.

The central bank also affirmed that the National Fraud Portal (NFP) will be rolled out by mid-2024 to further strengthen Malaysia's defences against financial fraud.

With tools to support analyses before and after the detection of fraud, the NFC is expected to speed up the tracing of stolen funds, and facilitate prompt actions to be taken on fraudsters and scammers.

It is designed to increase automation of the tracing process to improve recovery of stolen funds as it will provide access to credible data and information within the payment ecosystem, said BNM.

"The NFP facilitates the integration of transaction data from various sources. It also facilitates greater information sharing among financial institutions to allow stolen funds in suspected accounts to be quickly blocked, pending further investigations,” it said.  

With capabilities to support data-driven assessments and identification of mule account holders, the NFP is expected to improve how financial institutions identify such accounts and inform them on their next course of actions. This may include blocking and restricting access to the account, as well as conducting enhanced monitoring on the mule accounts.

The NFP will also promote greater standardisation of the classification of mule accounts by financial institutions, and serve as a comprehensive database on mule accounts.

“In the future, the NFP may include other functionalities that provide predictive analytics to facilitate pre-emptive actions to combat fraud. This may include detecting and halting transactions that are suspected to be fraudulent to reduce fraud losses," it said.

These will enable quicker escalations of fraud cases to the police and faster initiation of legal actions, it added.

Don't miss the other highlights of the BNM Annual Report 2023. Read the articles here.