Reading news reports of how people have lost their life savings to scammers, I wonder if we should start looking at different measures to combat online scams.

One way would be to slow down the process of people-to-people money transfers. With the advent of Fast (Fast And Secure Transfers) in Singapore, the transfer of money between people is so frictionless that it is now a boon for online scammers. Once money is transferred out of your account, it is much harder to retrieve.

Each bank could put in place a system for person-to-person money transfers that would delay transfers by 24 hours, and allow individuals to react to messages notifying them that money is being transferred out of their accounts, without causing too much inconvenience.

This system could be set to kick in only after a certain amount, for instance $1,000, has been transferred out of an account for the day. It would apply to only person-to-person transfers, and not for transfers to organisations or for credit card payments.

Only with a multi-faceted approach to combating scams can we gain back people’s trust in online transactions.

Edmond Lim Chye Kwang