BE wary of online scams.
The word of caution from the Association of Banks in Fiji comes as incidences of online fraud increase.
While the association could not give precise figures for Fiji, it said all banks noted that scams have recently increased in the region.
With Fijis growing promotion of online banking as a convenient and easy channel to do banking, both existing and new customers need to be aware of what they can do to minimise risks of being duped into virtually handing over money to criminals who have made a profession out of stealing via the internet, ABIF executive secretary and treasurer, Rasiklal Jogia said.
The most important thing to remember is that the customers should never, under any circumstances, give out their personal confidential information to anyone, not even to family and friends. Banks will never ask customers to update, verify or correct their online banking details directly into an email reply or through a text message.
Mr Jogia said the Australian government reported that consumer fraud was estimated to cost Australia about $1.8billion annually.
Its now a serious issue affecting all banks in Fiji, Mr Jogia said.
Westpac Fiji general manager, Adrian Hughes said with the anti money laundering systems, movements of large amounts of money, may be reported to authorities if they were suspicious.
However, we cant do this with smaller amounts with online fraud, Mr Hughes said.
The amounts may vary from just a few dollars as the criminals test the waters before moving onto larger amounts if the customer hasnt reported the issue.
ANZs head of electronic-banking, Apenisa Seniloli said the bank had not been a specific target of cyber crime.
However the majority of customers who were victims of cyber crime were those who transacted online via credit card and had been targeted by scams originating from abroad.
Mr Seniloli said these are mainly transactions via unsecured sites.