Telstra and CBA announce new service to detect scams happening on your phone

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) and Telstra have today announced a new pilot that will help protect their customers from phone scams.

The service, called Scam Indicator, will be piloted over the coming months and help protect CBA and Telstra customers from phone scams. The service will use a Telstra API, which will allow CBA to check specific data points relating to scam prevention including whether a user is on a phone call – a prime indicator that a scam is occurring says CBA.

If a potential scam is detected, the Commonwealth Bank will try to contact the customer or put additional checks in place.

Matt Comyn, Commonwealth Bank CEO said: 

“CBA and Telstra are committed to helping customers protect themselves from the financial losses and emotional trauma associated with scams. We are focused on helping customers stay safe by improving early detection and prevention of scams. We have been working with Telstra to produce a machine-learning scams detection model, the first in a number of exciting initiatives from this partnership.”

The new service is part of a growing suite of tools that CBA are building, which includes NameCheck announced earlier this year which gives customers an indication of whether the name and account details they entered look right. This new Scam Indicator service will extend protections with Telstra and CBA simulations are predicting that the service could potentially mitigate customer losses of up to $15-20 million.

Telstra sees this as another way to implement AI and data to ‘to deliver positive outcomes for customers’. 

Vicki Brady, Telstra CEO said 

“I’m often asked by people why Telstra can’t do more to protect against phone scams, and this is an example of us doing just that – working innovatively with CBA to put in place measures that will help stop this criminal activity in its tracks.”

Following the pilot and further testing, Scam Indicator is expected to be made available by CBA to joint CBA and Telstra customers later this year.