ANZ has revealed that its scam losses dropped by 15 per cent between October 2024 and June this year, as the bank goes live with its new digital padlock tool.

The Australian bank said that its ability to recover over $100 million in scam related funds over the nine-month period is down to its multi-layered scam prevention strategy which has involved the rollout of new tools, increased customer engagement with security features, and education opportunities.

ANZ announced in March plans to rollout its digital padlock tool, which enables both business and retail customers across its apps and internet banking to instantly lock down digital access to their accounts if they suspect they are being targeted by cybercriminals.

According to the bank, ANZ customers will be the first Australians to access this type of ‘last resort’ lock technology.

“We’re proud that our detection teams are intercepting threats faster than ever, and that our customers are becoming increasingly aware of how to protect themselves,” said ANZ head of customer protection, Shaq Johnson.

The move comes after the bank introduced of Confirmation of Payee, an industry-wide service which started being rolled out across Australia last month.

The service, which is already common practice in the UK, confirms whether the account name matches the details held by the receiving bank so that customers to verify the payee details and either proceed or cancel the payment.

Since it was launched, ANZ has seen over 140,000 payments abandoned by customers after being presented with a mismatch result.

Since launching CallSafe in November 2024, ANZ has also securely authenticated almost 30,000 customer calls.

CallSafe helps customers and service teams verify the identity of the person they are speaking to before discussing personal or sensitive information or taking certain actions on their behalf.

---