ABA launches PayID scams campaign

The Australian Banking Association (ABA) and participating ABA member banks have today launched a public awareness media campaign to help protect customers against the growing threat of scams.

The “Australian Banks: Working to Protect You” PayID campaign encourages customers to use PayID, available since February 2018 when making payments via online and mobile banking.

“We encourage customers to find out more about PayID and a good place to start is the website payid.com.au,” ABA CEO Anna Bligh said today.

“This website links directly to participating banks’ websites and highlights what is available with each bank and where possible includes information on how to sign up.

“PayID is free to register, easy to use and to date there are more than 11 million PayIDs registered in Australia, but we would like to see even more. Customers can have multiple PayIDs, including their phone number, registered emails, or even their ABN in the case of a business.

“17% of all real time payments are now made using PayID and this campaign aims to accelerate the growth of these payments.

“PayID is as simple as using the mobile number or email address of the person or business you wish to pay to make a payment, unlike a traditional payment where you need both a BSB and an account number.

“Critically, it helps to stop scams because unlike a traditional payment, the payer can see a confirmation screen, which includes the intended PayID name, before they confirm the payment.

“The more payments we see using PayID, the more protected customers will be.”

The ABA campaign, which will track both increased PayID registrations and the growth in payments made to a PayID instead of a BSB and account number, includes a range of materials including online videos, radio spots, digital posters and social media tiles to highlight scams and how using PayID can ensure payments go where they are intended.

Over the course of last year, Australian banks spent around $19 billion on IT systems to build resilience including against scams, but unfortunately, these issues are not restricted to banking alone.

Other sectors and services are used to scam customers and banks will keep working with other key sectors like online shopping platforms, telco providers as well as governments and law enforcement agencies to combat this growing challenge.

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