From today, Australia’s most trusted bank, Bendigo Bank, has expanded its collaboration with Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, to provide increased protection from scams and fraud to its more than 2.5 million customers.
The advanced security tool, NameCheck, is now being used to screen all payments made by Bendigo Bank and Up customers whenever they enter the BSB and account number for a new payee. Using the insights from available payment data, NameCheck will give an indication of whether the details provided appear legitimate.
Bendigo Bank’s Chief Digital Officer and CEO of Up, Xavier Shay, said the introduction of NameCheck, as part of a pilot with digital bank Up, had already detected and stopped more than 61,000 mistaken or scam payments made by ‘Upsiders’ since February 2024, which would have totalled more than an estimated $26 million.
“This technology is now proven to reduce the impact of scams and the risk of mistaken payments, so we’re proud to provide our customers with additional confidence when making direct payments online from today,” Mr Shay said.
“This is just one example of how we work with other industry participants to keep our customers safe. Cyber fraud is a complex, evolving, and ongoing challenge that the industry, government, regulators, law enforcement, telcos and internet platforms must work together to combat,” he said.
“As we work towards the delivery of an industry-wide solution to confirmation of payee in 2025, Bendigo Bank is putting measures in place to help keep our customers safe now, beyond the current regulatory requirements, and in line with our commitment to the Australian Banking Association’s Scam-Safe Accord.”
CBA Executive General Manager Payments, Ethan Teas, said Bendigo Bank and Up represent the largest third-party adopter of NameCheck in Australia by volume of use, and that the partnership is an important illustration of the power of industry cooperation.
“With scams and fraud costing Australians and businesses billions of dollars annually, it’s clear a whole-of-ecosystem response is needed to combat this problem. We are proud to be able to extend our industry-leading technology to others to help prevent mistaken payments and protect even more Australians from cyber criminals,” Mr Teas said.
Australians lost more than $2.74 billion to scams in 2023, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre - down from $3 billion in 2022 - thanks in part to the continued effort and investment in scam prevention and protection by banks such as Bendigo Bank and Up.
"The trust of our customers is paramount to us, and we take it very seriously. By continuously enhancing, adopting and developing powerful solutions to prevent scams and the unauthorised flow of funds, our customers are amongst the safest banking customers in Australia,” Mr Shay said.
This latest measure introduced by Bendigo Bank, and Australia’s first and best mobile-only digital bank Up, is in addition to both banks tightening transaction rules and adding friction to risky payments, removing unexpected links from SMS messages, implementing unusual account and misuse detection measures, increasing card security, and increasing the size of their fraud prevention and response team significantly.
