More local banks are planning to deploy their staff members at the police’s Anti-Scam Centre (ASC), with the police working with the banks against scams.
At the moment, only DBS Bank has staff deployed at the ASC.
OCBC is planning to deploy a team at the ASC by June this year, while UOB is in the midst of discussions with the ASC to deploy staff there.
Minister of State for Home Affairs, Desmond Tan, previously said in a ministerial statement back in February that the ASC and the MAS were working with banks to have their workers deployed inside the ASC.
Tan said that it was very difficult to recover money that has been lost to scams; but in successful cases, it involved close partnerships with a bank staff member being inside the ASC for intervention in real-time.
The ASC is in partnership with more than 60 stakeholders, which includes organisations such as banks, telcos and e-commerce platforms.
A spokesperson for UOB said that they have been providing full support to the ASC for the last 3 years, and that it has allowed for the recovery of $6.69 million that was lost to a business email impersonation scam in 2020.
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