A new FICO industry survey has found that 69% of banking executives across the Asia Pacific region now see scams and mule accounts as the most pressing fraud threat. Unlike unauthorized transactions—which can often be blocked by bank security systems—these scams trick users into making legitimate-looking transfers to criminal networks, bypassing conventional fraud filters.
The sharp rise in this type of authorized push payment (APP) fraud is forcing banks to rethink their entire fraud detection architecture. Once a scam is executed, stolen funds are typically routed through layers of mule accounts, making recovery nearly impossible.
In 2024 alone, scam-related financial losses reached alarming levels: over $860 million in Singapore, ฿60 billion ($1.7 billion) in Thailand, and RM54 billion ($12.8 billion) in Malaysia—representing nearly 3% of that nation’s GDP.
Social media emerges as the new scam frontier
The FICO survey found that more than half of APAC banking leaders now view social media platforms as the leading threat vector, followed by messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Criminal syndicates are increasingly impersonating officials, offering fake investment opportunities, or recruiting individuals to “rent out” their bank accounts—turning them into unknowing money mules.
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In Thailand, authorities shut down over 200,000 mule accounts in one year. Singapore recently introduced legislation to criminalize the provision of mule accounts and grant real-time authority to banks and regulators to intervene in active scams.
FICO’s Asia Pacific Managing Director Dattu Kompella said that financial crime today is “fast, fluid, and fragmented,” making static defences obsolete.
Data silos and reimbursement debates delay effective response
Internally, banks face their own limitations. Nearly half of the executives surveyed cited siloed data as a key barrier to scam detection. Others pointed to poor integration across digital channels and limited access to third-party insights.
There’s also no consensus on who bears responsibility when scams occur. Just 14% of respondents said banks should reimburse customers in all scam scenarios. Half support reimbursement only when banks are clearly at fault, while 36% advocated for a shared liability model.
With scam losses reaching historic highs and regulatory scrutiny increasing, banks across the region are under pressure to invest in real-time detection, cross-channel visibility, and customer education programs to manage the evolving threat.
