Malaysian banks and PayNet are developing industry-wide fraud alerts to warn banks and customers before potentially risky payments go through.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Governor Dato’ Sri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour announced the initiative at the 16th International Conference on Financial Crime and Counter Terrorism Financing in Kuala Lumpur.

The alerts will prompt customers to pause, think and verify before proceeding with a transaction.

“We recognise that this capability may introduce additional friction for customers. However, these measures are necessary to strike an appropriate balance between offering convenience and protecting customers from fraud, particularly authorised scams.

Today, I am pleased to announce that a pilot testing involving selected banks is targeted for first half of 2027, ahead of wider implementation.”

About 95 percent of online fraud cases involve victims being deceived into transferring funds themselves, he noted.

Since October 2025, the National Fraud Portal has piloted an analysis of payment network patterns to identify potential mule accounts.

BNM and PayNet launched the National Fraud Portal in August 2024 to help trace and freeze suspicious funds.

PayNet has flagged more than 1,600 suspicious accounts, many of which were subsequently assessed as presenting mule-related risks.

Abdul Rasheed noted that combining information across financial institutions can reveal risks that individual institutions may miss.

Malaysia’s financial sector prevented approximately RM1.9 billion in attempted fraudulent transactions in the first half of 2026, exceeding the RM1.2 billion prevented throughout 2025, according to BNM.

BNM has also revised its Risk Management in Technology policy and recently issued its Financial Institutions’ Response to Fraud policy to strengthen resilience against technology risks and reinforce accountability for fraud prevention.

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