00:00This is a big development in this space.
00:04The government's been talking about it for some time, but today we get to see some of
00:09the details from draft legislation they're proposing.
00:13And Stephen Jones, the Minister responsible, has put a big emphasis on prevention.
00:19So he is taking a unique approach here where it's not only the banks under the spotlight,
00:25it's also the big social media companies and the tech giants behind them, the telcos,
00:33who are going to be made responsible under new obligations, which we're yet to see, to
00:39detect, prevent and then respond to scams.
00:42And if they don't do that, there's going to be big penalties attached.
00:47And he says this is going to be much better for consumers, not only in the prevention
00:52space, but if these companies get it wrong, there's going to be more compensation avenues
00:58open to customers.
01:01So let's have a listen to what Stephen Jones has had to say this morning.
01:05There's a major uplift in our protections for Australians against scammers.
01:11This is a part, the next phase in our war against the scammers.
01:14We've already stood up a national anti-scam centre.
01:17We're already taking down fake investment sites and filtering out millions and millions
01:21of messages and phone calls every week.
01:24And it's working.
01:25It's meant for the first time ever that Australian scam losses haven't doubled.
01:29Only country in the world where that has occurred, but we're still losing $2.75 billion a year
01:35and that's far too much.
01:36Every dollar is a tragedy.
01:39Stephen Jones there.
01:40So this is a significant development in this space.
01:44And while there's not all the detail that we need to analyse it fully, this is a very
01:48interesting development.
01:51What could those obligations include?
01:54We don't know yet, but Stephen Jones has outlined some of them.
01:57So banks, for example, will have to make sure that a technology called confirmation of payee
02:03is in place for customers across the industry.
02:05So that's when you go to make a payment in the banking app or online and you get a warning
02:13if the person you're intending to pay, their account details and name don't match who you
02:19think it is.
02:20So that will be a key development that exists already overseas and is saving a lot of money
02:26overseas that will have to be in place here.
02:30There'll be other developments.
02:31So banks will be required on the receiving end.
02:35So there's obviously the bank paying the money, often a bank receiving the money before it's
02:40stolen on the other end.
02:43Banks will be made responsible for cracking down on what's called money mule accounts.
02:47So these are bank accounts controlled by criminals that are used to receive scam victims'
02:53money and then shift it, usually offshore.
02:57So there'll be a new responsibility around that.
03:00There's going to be obligations on the phone providers to crack down on who's sending text
03:07messages to make sure that if your viewers are anything like me, I still get multiple
03:14scam text messages a week.
03:17Crack down on who's sending those and also blocking scam numbers that continue to pester
03:24people to try and get them to invest in scams.
03:27So there'll be that as well as the tech giants will be made responsible for verifying advertisers
03:34on their platforms and taking down known scam content.
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