With scammers making off with nearly 1% of Taiwan's GDP, officials say banks need high tech solutions to deal with rampant fraud.
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00:00May I ask what is the purpose of this payment?
00:03A bit of role play with a serious purpose.
00:06This bank teller has a suspicious customer
00:08who can't explain why he wants to withdraw over US$20,000.
00:12Using her training, she figures out this man is a scam artist,
00:16and it's not long until police are on the scene to arrest him.
00:19In the audience at this demonstration
00:21are Premier Zhou Rongtai
00:22and Financial Supervisory Commission official Tong Zhongchang.
00:26Taiwan seeing a surge in scams and fraud.
00:29From mid-2022 to mid-2023,
00:31fraudsters made off with nearly 1% of the national GDP.
00:35But while bank accounts aren't the main target,
00:37officials are still determined to keep them safe.
00:40Bankers say their anti-fraud measures work most of the time.
00:54But it's that 10% that can be lucrative,
00:56and Taiwan is full of accounts ripe for criminals to try and access.
01:00That's because Taiwanese employers usually have a preferred bank
01:03that new hires have to open an account with to get paid.
01:07So people who change jobs frequently
01:09may end up with many accounts they don't bother to close.
01:12Those abandoned accounts can then be taken over by fraudsters,
01:15with the original account holders none the wiser.
01:18To help fight the problem,
01:19the government set aside over US$200 million for next year.
01:23But officials say money won't be enough.
01:26They want closer cooperation between banks and customers,
01:29and they seek high-tech solutions as well.
01:47It may not be easy for banks to pull this off.
01:50In recent years, fraud has proved to be a sticky problem,
01:53with new rings popping up when old ones are busted,
01:55and no shortage of inventive new scams.
01:58But officials are still making a clampdown on fraud a priority.
02:01Scott Huang and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.