In order to thoroughly prevent fraud through bank accounts and at the same time clean up customer data, on June 28, 2024, the State Bank issued Circular 17/2024/TT-NHNN (Circular 17) regulating the opening and use of payment accounts at payment service providers.

Circular 17 takes effect from July 1, 2024. In particular, Article 22 of this Circular stipulates: Banks and foreign bank branches in Vietnam are responsible for providing information on customers' payment accounts according to the State Bank's instructions on performing state management functions.

No later than the 10th of each month, banks and foreign bank branches in Vietnam must provide, upon request of the State Bank, information on accounts showing signs of fraud, swindling, or violations of the law.

Information provision is done electronically according to the State Bank's technical connection instructions.

The list of individual customers who open and use payment accounts suspected of being involved in forgery, fraud, or scams updated by the bank includes: customer code (CIF), identification number, identification type, full name, date of birth, gender, nationality, account number, account opening date, phone number registered for electronic banking services, reason for suspicion, account status, and unique device identification information (MAC address).

The latest time for provision is the 10th of each month, sent via the information system supporting management, monitoring and prevention of fraud risks in payment activities of the State Bank.

Currently, banks must send a list of "black accounts" suspected of fraud to the State Bank, but there is no unified way to terminate or close these accounts.

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A victim who was scammed out of nearly 3 billion VND in his account shared his story with VietNamNet reporter. Photo: NT.

For accounts suspected of being involved in forgery, fraud, and scams, since the end of June, the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) has pioneered the deployment of a feature to identify and warn users when transferring money to phone numbers on the "black" list.

According to Mr. Vu Thanh Trung, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of MB Bank, in July 2024 alone, as soon as this feature was deployed, MB warned 2,700 customers when making money transfer transactions. As a result, 1,500 customers were warned and immediately proactively stopped the transaction.

“This feature is considered particularly useful in the context of rapidly developing information technology, with increasingly sophisticated forms of fraud. Accordingly, when transferring money, customers will receive a warning in case the recipient is a fraudulent account. This allows customers to easily block strange and suspicious transactions, helping to protect the safety of their accounts and assets,” said Mr. Vu Thanh Trung.

It is known that the fraud detection and warning feature is the result of coordination between MB and the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05), Ministry of Public Security.

Accordingly, MB and A05 will update the list of all accounts participating in or related to fraudulent activities nationwide. This list currently has about 3,000 accounts, and will be updated daily between A05 and MB.

Before each MB customer's money transfer transaction, the bank will quickly check to identify whether the account is on the suspicious list or not.

“I confirm that this is just a list of suspected accounts, including real fraudulent accounts, but also suspicious accounts. We clearly warn customers before transferring money that the receiving account is on the suspect list,” Mr. Vu Thanh Trung informed.

At the conference to review the implementation of the Project on developing applications of population data, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period of 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030 of the Government (Project 06) and Coordination Plan No. 01/KHPH-BCA-NHNNVN between the Ministry of Public Security and the State Bank of Vietnam on implementing the tasks in Project 06, the feature of detecting and warning of fraudulent accounts was urgently agreed by all banks to be put on the system in coordination with A05.