Telstra and CBA to launch tech warning to bank’s customers they’re being scammed

Telstra and CBA have joined forces in a bid to stop customers being scammed over the phone.

Commonwealth Bank customers who attempt to make large transactions while on the phone to scammers may soon receive a warning they are about to be swindled, thanks to technology to be introduced by Telstra and CBA.

The two business giants have joined forces in a bid to halt scammers who call Australians and convince them to transfer large sums of money.

Telstra and CBA have already prepared the proof of concept for the technology, which checks to see whether a CBA customer – with a Telstra service – is on a phone call when attempting to make a large transfer.

CBA said it would attempt to contact the customer if they were identified to be on a call, or put additional checks in place on the transaction.

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn said the deal with Telstra presented an opportunity to show how businesses could work collaboratively to stop crime.

“It’s going to be necessary to invest collectively to protect customers,” he said.

Mr Comyn said the technology might delay or block transactions depending on the concern level from CBA.

“We need to work through how to best communicate directly with customers on different scams types,” he said.

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady. Picture: Luis Ascui

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady said the partnership with the bank was natural and comes as the complaints to the telco about scam calls increase.

Ms Brady said Telstra customers often asked if there was more the telco could do.

“We’ve been working for a little while on this and other ideas, I know CBA have been as well,” she said.

Ms Brady said Telstra hoped to introduce the technology by the middle of this year and had left the door open to other banks and telcos to implement similar technology by the latter half of the year.

“We have lots of conversations going on with the major banks,” she said.

However, Ms Brady said the technology could not block messages or calls taking place outside the phone system, on apps such as WhatsApp.

“These scammers are clever and they’ll find the weakest link,” she said.

The tech rollout is the latest move by CBA to combat scams and it has launched

NameCheck, which compares file information on bank accounts to details entered by customers. If names don’t match, CBA issues a warning to the customer.

Telstra has also attempted to push back on scams, launching its “Cleaner Pipes” to filter spam, scam calls and texts.

Telstra said it had blocked almost 230 million text messages and almost 10 million unwanted phone calls every month since launching.