New bank security system - but two clients lose R18,500 to fraudsters

Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and cellphone banking fraud might soon be a thing of the past as banks are enrolling sophisticated anti-fraud biometrics solutions to protect their clients.

Fraud is commonly committed when scam artists steal passwords, and Personal Identity Numbers (PIN) to access your money.

The advantage of a biometrics systems is that it can identify people by unique and measurable body parts such as fingerprints, so consumers will no longer be accused of compromising their PIN numbers to third parties.

This means if you use fingerprint signing there will be no chance of cloning your identity. In the local banking industry, Standard Bank is one of the pioneers to use biometrics solutions when they launched their new systems on Thursday last week.

But the new security solutions were too late for consumers like Mokgadi Mothiba and Nobonke Botya, whose bank accounts were defrauded and who were told they were the ones who had compromised their PINs to a third person.

They were defrauded by another client at Capitec Bank where they hold their accounts.

They say their money was fraudulently transferred from their accounts into that of a fraudster without their permission or knowledge.

Mothiba says she does not use an ATM at all and prefers withdrawing money at the tellers. "I do not even know the PIN number Capitec Bank claims I compromised," she says.

Mothiba said though Capitec Bank knows in whose account her R12000 went when it was transferred to another client, the bank has refused to reverse the funds or question the beneficiary on the fraudulent deposit.

She says the bank told her the recipient will have to give their consent to have the money reversed to her account.

Botya was defrauded out of R6500 the night after she received her February salary.

She claims she received a telephone call from her cellular phone provider after 8pm on the February 25 asking her if she had requested a sim swap on her cellphone, which she had not, she says.

But her sim card was swapped even after she had told the service provider she did not request it.

The fraudster went on a shopping spree, buying air time worth R1000, and groceries before withdrawing R3500 from her account.

Carl Fischer, executive of marketing and corporate affairs at Capitec Bank has continually failed to answer Sowetan's question on how the bank is resolving the matters involving Botya and Mothiba.

Fischer instead told Sowetan that Capitec had also implemented biometric security systems throughout their branches to enhance security.

He said that the bank has partnered with the Department of Home Affairs to make it impossible for identity thieves to target their customers.

He said important information on their client's internet profile or bank account could not be changed without their fingerprints being presented in the branch.

If a client's card is stolen, the fraudster cannot transact in the branch using a false ID.

On Standard Bank's biometrics solutions for mobile banking, the bank's head of mobile banking, Magnus Taljaard said the new technology enabled clients through Touch ID to use the fingerprint identity sensor to avoid being scammed.