Some of Canada’s biggest companies are building the Avengers equivalent of a fraud-fighting team. Stay tuned for the movie.
What happened: A group of 50 organizations launched a new coalition to crack down on scams in Canada, with the Big Six banks, Rogers, Bell, Telus, Google, and Meta all on board. Among other initiatives, the companies will share intel with each other and law enforcement to help stop increasingly sophisticated fraud scams across the country.
- Starting next month, the coalition will roll out an ad blitz to raise awareness about popular scams and how Canadians can spot them.
Why it’s happening: Banks, telecoms, and tech firms have all been fighting scams in their own lane, but they haven’t really been comparing notes. By working together, the head of the coalition says they can do a better job of tackling new schemes before they reach Canadians.
Why it matters: Canadians lost an estimated $6 billion to $12 billion last year to scams. With AI making existing scams even more believable, stopping bad actors before they have the chance to dupe victims is all the more important.
Big picture: Australia notably cut scam losses by almost 40% in the first half of the year compared to 2023 after rolling out a similar cross-sector system. While it may take time until Canada sees a decline in losses, the Canadian coalition is confident it can at least stop the growth of new scams. Hey, we’ll take what we can get.—LA