KUALA LUMPUR: With the recent rise of security breaches among e-wallet and bank transactions, Touch 'n Go eWallet has incorporated several key measures imposed on banks by Bank Negara Malaysia to combat malicious financial scams.
Its chief executive officer, Alan Ni, said it would take some time for Malaysia to be completely cashless, but we have to make it secure.
"I believe the trend of digital is irreversible. Cash has been a thing for decades but I do believe that cash, as a percentage of total payment, will get lesser and one day we'll become cashless. Therefore, it is the industry and regulators' responsibility to make digital payments secure and safe so people will have trust in using them. Bank Negara is pushing this agenda and the fraud prevention measurements are an important step to move towards that direction," he said.
Being the first and only e-wallet in Malaysia to be a part of the National Scam Response Centre, Touch 'n Go eWallet will implement five strategies by the first quarter of 2023:
*Enhance security by adding more authentication methods to complement the current methods.
*Tighten fraud rules and block suspicious transactions.
*Verification and cooling-off period for first-time enrolment of services, secure device, or profile document.
*Restrict authentication of e-transactions to ONE mobile device or secure device per account holder.
*Have a dedicated customer service channel/hotline for incident reports and suspicions of scams and fraud.
Ni added that Malaysia is not alone in the fight against fraudsters and that Touch 'n Go is also combating threats such as malware, phone scam, phishing, and mule accounts.
"In this case, the police, government, and involved organisations have to come together with some industry-wide response and fraud prevention measures to combat the threats. The measurements would work if both organisations and users are aware of the risk and take preventive actions to address it," he added.
He advised users to be more vigilant, especially when handing their OTP or passcode to a stranger, or when downloading software from an unauthorised app.