HONGKONG: A lawmaker in Hong Kong has said that the country’s government would benefit from enlisting other countries and regions, including Singapore and Australia. To require banks and social media firms to take responsibility for people’s losses due to scams or fraud.
A report in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday (Jan 20) says that Johnny Ng Kit-chong, a convenor of an anti-scam alliance, is also asking that a mechanism to require companies to give victims compensation for their losses be created. This would ensure that the responsibility for losses from scams and frauds would be shared between telecommunications companies, social media platforms, financial institutions, and victimised individuals.
In October, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) published the Guidelines on Shared Responsibility Framework, which set out the roles and accountability of individual consumers, telecommunications companies, and financial institutions. The framework allocated each consumer’s responsibility for losses in phishing scams and established the workflow for victims to report these.
Australia is looking into having social media companies share responsibility for fraud losses.
SCMP noted that not all Hong Kong legislators supported Mr Ng Kit-chong’s proposal. One expressed uncertainty about whether all sectors would agree with it because it would penalize some entities.
Mr Ng Kit-chong had said that setting up a “Fraud Loss Responsibility Framework” would cause financial institutions, telecommunication providers, and digital platforms to become more proactive in fighting scams and fraud.
In September, the Kong Monetary Authority started consultations with commercial banks. Under this plan, banks would be required to share in the losses in scams in which people lost money after providing their personal information.
He added that an independent committee could also be established to evaluate each case’s merits and determine how much each should pay.
A report in GBCode quotes Mr Ng Kit-chong as saying, “Nowadays, we do not have any mechanism or organizations to help the victims to get back the money. I think this framework is to help them [victims] to recoup some money from some organization or parties.”
He also noted how easy scammers have become to advertise on social networks, citing citizens who see significant discounts on plane tickets but lose money when they click on a phishing or fraudulent website.
As for banks, the lawmaker asserted there is more they can do to flag suspicious transactions, such as when fraudsters use bank accounts and credit cards overseas to debit the victim’s cards in foreign exchange. /TISG