The Bank of Thailand (BOT) issued a set of policy guidelines to deal with financial fraud threats across the financial transaction process and extended the period of credit support measures for business operators until April 09, 2024.
The guidelines for managing financial fraud provide a set of measures that will help financial institutions to prevent fraud risks and solve problems for the public more efficiently by maintaining a balance between risk management and promoting digital financial services. BOT urged all financial institutions to implement the measures by March 2023. The guidelines focus on:
- Adoption of preventive measures such as refraining financial institutions from sending all types of links via SMS, e-mail as well as links requesting important information such as usernames, passwords, and national ID numbers via social media. Banks should limit the number of mobile banking accounts (usernames) to be used on 1 device only. Banks must provide notification to mobile banking users before every transaction and develop security systems on mobile banking to keep up with new financial threats. Banks are advised to increase diligence in the minimum identity verification process by using technology to compare the customer's physical identity such as biometrics.
- Development of account detection and tracking measures for suspicious transactions in order for the financial institution to help limit damages faster and reduce the use of horse accounts.
- Response and countermeasures to deal with victims' problems faster, including the provision of a 24-hour hotline to allow users to report incidents as soon as possible.
As part of the extension of credit support measures, BOT decided to extend the period for adjustment loans until April 09, 2024, so that debtors affected by the COVID-19 situation receive continuous assistance. Since entrepreneurs that have real estate as collateral with financial institutions, especially tourism and hotel businesses, are beginning to recover from the opening of the country, BOT informed that it will not extend the life of debt suspension projects. However, debtors can still negotiate debt restructuring with financial institutions. BOT states that the remaining credit line of the debt suspension project after the end of the measure should be included as a credit line under the next rehabilitation credit measure, which will be announced by April 09, 2023.
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