- Telco companies and digital platforms need to step up to protect people from scams. That’s the message from the New Zealand Banking Association as they roll out a new suite of their own protective measures.
- Where a bank fails to meet the five new commitments, institutions will compensate all or part of the loss for eligible customers. Banks will also retain the discretion to pay compensation beyond what is set out in the code.
- “Banks will use this time to ensure the new consumer protections work well from the start. That includes designing and implementing changes to each bank’s systems, processes, and staff training, alongside other change priorities. The updated Code of Banking Practice will go live on 30 November 2025 once all the new measures are in place.”
- “Banks are stepping up their customer protections and will be accountable for those measures, but they cannot take on full liability for scam losses that are beyond their control and may, for example, start with a fake ad or chat on social media, or a fake search engine result,” he said.
- “Banks already do a lot to identify and help prevent scams, and these new measures will enhance tech solutions to help protect customers from increasingly sophisticated scams.”
- A spokesperson from the NZ Banking Association says the Reserve Bank is taking the lead on behalf of the Council of Financial Regulators to act on recommendations for the banking industry to co-operate to make basic bank accounts widely available. “NZBA and our member banks are working with RBNZ and the Commerce Commission to progress... Read more »
- “We’re also asking the Government to help remove any regulatory barriers to the Anti-Scam Centre working effectively, and to set scam prevention expectations for other industries.”
- Roger Beaumont, chief executive of New Zealand’s Banking Association, noted the issue of the lenders’ net-zero targets was also being investigated by the parliamentary inquiry into banking competition.
