Ottawa is overhauling how it combats financial fraud.
What happened: In next month’s budget, the feds plan to introduce a new financial crime agency and make amendments to the Bank Act that will impose stricter anti-fraud and consumer protection requirements on lenders.
- Banks will be required to get customer permission before turning on features that could be used by scammers and to let customers disable any capabilities they don’t want.
- They’ll also have to collect and report fraud data, and have systems to “detect and prevent consumer-targeted fraud” (don’t know how those last two weren’t already requirements).
Why it’s happening: The only current legislative checks are rules saying you can’t be charged more than $50 if someone makes unauthorized charges on your credit card and that you’re not responsible for unauthorized debit card use if the reasons are “beyond [your] control.”
- And while many lenders already have policies that meet the proposed requirements, new policies will (hopefully) ensure banks actually follow them.
Why it matters: Financial fraud in Canada is growing faster than mould in a frat house’s basement. Canadians reported $643 million in fraud losses last year per the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. That’s a nearly 300% jump from 2020 — even then, it’s likely only 5% to 10% of the actual number.—QH