📬New Partnership Between CommBank and Telstra Targets Scam Prevention

This strategic partnership between CommBank and Telstra further enhances the anti-scam technology of CommBank called Scam Indicator, extending landline coverage. Such a facility is of immense significance as it will identify suspicious calls in real-time to prevent consumers from financial losses on account of these scammers.

The Details:

The technology was developed in collaboration with Quantium Telstra to protect both Telstra and CommBank customers. Statistics from the National Anti-Scam Centre show that in 2023, people aged more than 65 years lost an enormous amount of money to scammers, indicating a disturbing increase in financial losses without an equivalent decrease in reported incidents.

Quantium Telstra CEO Sandy Cameron praised the Scam Indicator technology and the partnership with CommBank as great teamwork for consumer safety. The technology picks up potential scammers on calls. Consequently, it allows the Fraud team within CommBank to take quick actions such as putting holds, blocks, and rejections in place. It also triggers real-time alerts to impacted customers to protect those most vulnerable.

CommBank and Telstra use the Scam Indicator to prevent their mutual retail customers from losing substantial sums of money to scammers. This is a great measure whereby recovery would have been quite difficult without such high-technology intervention.

CommBank's General Manager of Group Fraud James Roberts explained that, in most cases, the scammers pretend to be someone to trick the targeted person into downloading software, which becomes their gateway to access the victim's computer remotely. The deployment of Scam Indicator technology by CommBank and Telstra in their combined retail customers has stopped millions from falling into scammers' hands.

Zoom in:

It is part of the commitment by CommBank and Telstra to increase early detection and prevention of scams as they continue to collaborate with others in the ecosystem. Work undertaken with Telstra is an excellent example of the power of collaboration where data and technology are being mobilized for good with security and privacy front and center.

Examples include the significant reduction of successful scam attempts. This has proven that such a strategic partnership will work wonders. Until recently, the coverage increased by 25% upon the inclusion of landlines, adding thousands of protected landlines. It therefore provides an important extension in protecting more Australians from becoming victims of scams.

Why it matters:

CommBank and Telstra extend proactive scam combat via landlines, with the apparent implications for emphasis on utilising technologies and data better to protect consumers against financial loss and identity theft.

Bottom Line:

Company collaboration provides an advanced level of consumer protection and raises the bar on the abilities of scammers to dupe people, serving as a positive example in the fight against fraud and cybercrime.