The changes will be rolled out across 13 banks by the end of November. Photo: RNZ / 123rf
The New Zealand Banking Association is updating the Code of Banking Practice for the countries banks to better protect customers from scammers.
In an announcement on Wednesday, the association said the new measures would be progressively rolled out over the next seven months.
Scam protection changes
- Identification of high-risk transactions and unusual account activity
- Pre-transaction warnings for certain payments
- Confirmation that the name of the person they are paying matches the account number
- 24/7 reporting channel
- Sharing scammer account information with other banks
Where a bank fails to meet the five scam protection changes above, they will have to compensate all or part of the customers losses if scammed.
New Zealand Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said the new measures would help protect customers from increasingly sophisticated scams.
"The new compensation approach recognises shared responsibilities for protecting New Zealanders from scams.
"Banks are stepping up their customer protections and will be accountable for those measures, but they cannot take on full liability for scam losses that are beyond their control and may, for example, start with a fake ad or chat on social media, or a fake search engine result," he said.
Beaumont said they had been worked closely with the current and previous Ministers of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
"As the government has acknowledged, the scam ecosystem is far broader than just banks. To truly prevent scams, a cross-industry and government agency approach is needed.
"Banks can't combat scammers on their own," he said.
The updated Code of Banking Practice goes live on 30 November 2025.
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