SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s financial regulator said Monday it is considering reinforcing rules on voice phishing that may include a clause requiring banks to compensate victims.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has been reviewing related laws to decide whether they can reduce exemption grounds made for banks on voice phishing, its officials said.
Under the current law, banks are cleared of compensation payouts to a victim in case of a phone fraud because it is the victim’s negligence that takes more blame for having voluntarily provided personal details to a phony company.
However, experts have raised their voices for stricter rules to call banks to account, arguing that they are as responsible because their lax online security system, often leading to a leak, is to share in the blame for allowing perpetrators to easily access the personal information.
Market watchers said that banks need to take the responsibility to compensate victims, citing precedents in which credit card firms last year paid out victims about half of the damages incurred from a card loan phone fraud and toughened the identification procedure.
“We will see if banks can take a similar step to what credit card companies have done,” an FSS official said.
Banks refuted the watchdog’s move, saying that it is unfair for them to take responsibility for bank users’ own mistakes.
According to FSS data, the amount of damages incurred from voice phishing in South Korea stood at a total of 151.6 billion won (US$139.1 million) between January 2011 and Sept. 2012.
Earlier this year, the financial regulator announced measures to clamp down on phone fraud cases, such as delaying withdrawals of large-sum financial transactions and reinforcing credit authentication.
elly@yna.co.kr
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