Monzo announces new feature to help protect customers against impersonation scams
UK-based digital bank Monzo has added a new feature to its app in a bid to help prevent its eight million customers from falling victim to impersonation scams.
Monzo introduces new call status feature
An impersonation scam is when a scammer makes contact with an account holder, typically by calling them, and pretends to be from a trusted organisation to manipulate them into transferring them money.
As the rise of digital banking services continues, so too does the risk of fraud, and according to UK Finance, this type of scam cost UK consumers £177.6 million last year across 45,367 instances.
As one of the largest players in the UK’s digital banking market, Monzo is introducing a new feature this week that enables its customers to check whether or not it’s really the bank calling.
The ‘call status’ feature offers a means for customers to verify within the app whether the call they are receiving is genuine or not. If not, the incident can be reported directly to the bank through the new offering.
Priyesh Patel, a senior staff engineer at Monzo, recognises impersonation scams as “an industry-wide problem” that are becoming “increasingly sophisticated”. He describes Monzo’s new “industry-first” feature as “an additional layer of comfort and security” to prevent its customers from falling victim to this type of fraud.
As part of the bank’s wider initiatives to stamp out all forms of financial crime, it has joined other banking, telecoms and technology companies in the Stop Scams UK initiative to collaborate and contribute to stopping scams at the source.
It also recently joined eight other banks in tapping Mastercard’s AI-powered Consumer Fraud Risk solution to fight crime in real-time payments.
For Mark Tierney, chief executive at Stop Scams UK, Monzo’s call status feature is “a hugely welcome innovation that will help keep people safe against fraud”.
“Enabling consumers to be able to verify that they are talking to a trusted authority is key to beating the scammers. If a consumer ever receives a phone call about any financial matter, it is essential that they check they are actually speaking to their bank and not with a criminal.”
