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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB) and HKAB member banks announced today (August 31) their joint efforts to raise public awareness of phone scams and help further protect bank customers' interests.
All retail banks have been providing customer hotlines for the public to verify the identity of callers as genuinely from banks or not. To further facilitate this verification process, the industry has jointly introduced more measures and, from this day on, the hotline numbers and relevant information of all retail banks are posted on the websites of the individual retail banks, with a dedicated page newly set up on the websites of the HKMA and HKAB for easy access by the public. Callers from retail banks will, in addition to giving out their full names, provide their phone extension number, direct telephone number, or staff ID number as "identifying numbers" when contacting the public, who may verify the caller's identity through the customer hotlines of the respective bank before proceeding with any transactions.
The Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA, Mr Arthur Yuen, said, "The HKMA reminds the general public to take precautionary steps to authenticate calls purportedly from banks and bear in mind not to casually divulge sensitive personal information. If you receive a call where the caller claims to represent a bank, even if your account is said to be in danger and no matter how interested you are in the products being promoted, do not take their word without verifying their identity first. The hotlines posted on the websites of the HKMA, HKAB and individual retail banks should help the public to authenticate the caller's identity."
The Acting Chairperson of the HKAB, Mr George Leung, said, "Customer protection is of paramount importance to our member banks. We strongly advise the public to stay vigilant against phone scams made in the name of banks and make use of the additional information provided by banks to confirm the veracity of such calls. It is our hope that the concerted efforts adopted by the industry will help raise our customers' awareness of protecting themselves against such scams."
The HKMA and the HKAB would also like to remind the public that the HKMA and banks will not ask for any sensitive personal information (including login passwords or one-time passwords) through phone calls or emails. Members of the public are also reminded not to provide sensitive personal information to unidentified callers and not to rely simply on the incoming call display to establish the identity of the caller.
Ends/Monday, August 31, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:39
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