KUALA LUMPUR: Some countries are looking to Malaysia as a model for its approaches in preventing financial fraud, said Finance Minister II Amir Hamzah Azizan.
He said continued diligence, dedication, and cooperation across the financial sector and law enforcement agencies must persist to advance the momentum of success achieved so far.
“I have been informed that other countries are also looking to Malaysia and our efforts, including the National Fraud Portal (NFP), as examples of innovative approaches to preventing financial fraud,” he said at the launch of the National Fraud Portal today.
He expressed hope that, moving forward, everyone will support efforts to maintain the integrity of the nation’s digital ecosystem.
“Ensuring a safe and secure digital future is crucial to elevating the status and competitiveness of our country as envisioned under the Madani Economy framework,” he said.
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet), and financial institutions have launched the NFP as an integrated platform to strengthen the operational capabilities of the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC).
Amir Hamzah said the NFP is poised to elevate the nation’s strategy in combating online fraud by transforming the previously manual and time-consuming NSRC process.
“This portal is the leading automation platform in the region, providing secure access to critical databases to support fraud prevention, and offering NSRC members dynamic capabilities to detect and prevent fraudulent activities,” he said. He explained that the portal will integrate financial transaction data from various sources to detect suspicious transactions and facilitate verification by the involved institutions.
“This automation speeds up actions, reduces fraud detection time, and prevents further losses,“ said Amir Hamzah.
He said rapid response is crucial to prevent stolen funds from being withdrawn from the financial system, thereby increasing the chances of recovery.
“Since the pilot phase, the National Fraud Portal has reduced the time to track fraudulent transactions by up to 75%, and increased the average monthly amount of frozen funds (or earmarked amount) by financial institutions by 28% or RM4 million.
“With the participation of 16 financial institutions, the benefits of this portal are expected to continue to grow, along with continuous improvements and more financial institutions joining,” he said.
Amir Hamzah added that this portal is also supported by access to data on mule accounts from across the financial industry.
He said this protocol helps financial institutions classify mule accounts more accurately.
“I understand that with this data and analysis, the detection rate of mule account holders has increased by 14%.
“This protocol also standardises the industry’s approach to assisting account holders who fall victim to fraud, ensuring they are not denied basic financial services,” he said.
BNM governor Datuk Seri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said, “With the NFP, the NSRC operations are now equipped with an end-to-end automated process from managing fraud reports, validating and tracing stolen funds, to sharing alerts among financial institutions to trigger prompt action.”
