SINGAPORE, Jan 19 — Banks in Singapore will be removing clickable links in emails or SMS messages sent to retail customers and set the threshold for funds transfer notifications to customers by default at S$100 (RM311) or lower. These are part of several measures to protect account holders from phishing scams.

The changes, announced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) in a joint statement on Wednesday (Jan 19), will be implemented within the next two weeks.

The new measures came after at least 469 customers were affected by an SMS phishing scam targeting OCBC bank customers, with losses totalling at least S$8.5 million.

The fraudsters had sent out fake bank alerts that spoofed the bank’s official SMS channel, duping many of them into clicking on web links and giving up their personal account information last month.

In the joint statement, MAS and ABS said that these measures will bolster the security of digital banking, given that it will lengthen the time taken for certain online banking transactions and also provide an added layer of security to protect customers’ funds.

Other measures that banks will be putting in place include: