THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) welcomes the passage of Republic Act No. 12010 or the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (Afasa) which aims to combat financial cybercrimes, safeguard the interests of financial consumers and uphold the integrity of the financial system.
“We express our full support for the new anti-financial account scamming law. This will help us strengthen consumer protection and foster trust and confidence in the Philippine financial system,” said BSP Gov. Eli Remolona Jr. in a statement.
The Afasa prohibits and punishes financial crimes, such as acting as money mules, performing social engineering schemes and committing economic sabotage.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. signed the Afasa law on July 20, 2024.
“I hope that, through this law, we can deter the majority of the financial scams that we have been seeing while at the same time fostering greater trust in our digitization efforts,” said Marcos said.
The law authorizes the BSP to investigate cases involving violations of the law, apply for cybercrime warrants and orders, and request the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police in the investigation of cases.
Likewise, it includes a limited authority for the BSP to examine and investigate bank accounts, e-wallets, and other financial accounts that are involved in the prohibited acts.
Responsible institutions are also given the authority to hold disputed funds in financial accounts under certain conditions, as well as initiate a coordinated verification process to validate the disputed transactions.
Moreover, Afasa imposes responsibilities on BSP-supervised institutions to employ adequate risk and fraud management systems to ensure that their clients’ financial accounts are protected.
Bank-related spam, scam messages
Meanwhile, Ayala-led Globe has noted a substantial decrease in bank-related spam and scam SMS.
From January to June 2024, Globe intercepted 2,740,012 bank-related spam and scam messages, marking a 43.56 percent year-on-year decline compared to the 4,855,199 messages blocked in the same period of 2023.
Globe credited such progress to its robust partnership with major banks and financial institutions.
Globe has anti-fraud agreements with the Bankers Association of the Philippines, encompassing 45 major banks, and various individual players in the finance sector. These collaborations have enabled vigorous and timely data and intelligence-sharing, aligning efforts to prevent and investigate fraud more effectively.
“Our collective efforts with the banking sector have significantly strengthened our fight against spam and scam SMS targeting depositors. By working together and sharing critical intelligence, combined with our enhanced detection and blocking systems, we can now better protect our customers from illegal activities,” said Anton Bonifacio, Globe’s chief information and security officer and chief artificial intelligence officer.
Globe has allocated approximately US$20 million to enhance its spam and scam SMS detection and blocking systems to prevent fraudulent messages from reaching consumers,
The company operates a 25/7 Security Operations Center that filters out unwanted messages, including app-to-person and person-to-person SMS from international and domestic sources.
Amid this decline, Globe calls on mobile users to remain vigilant amid emerging scam schemes that evade cellular networks, including the use of chat apps and fake cell towers that are able to send messages without telco detection. / KOC