Saudi Banks Launch Campaign to Raise Awareness on New Financial Fraud Methods

The Saudi Banks Media and Awareness Committee has launched an awareness campaign tackling the latest fraud methods. 
The Saudi Banks Media and Awareness Committee has launched an awareness campaign tackling the latest fraud methods. 
TT

Saudi Banks Launch Campaign to Raise Awareness on New Financial Fraud Methods

The Saudi Banks Media and Awareness Committee has launched an awareness campaign tackling the latest fraud methods. 
The Saudi Banks Media and Awareness Committee has launched an awareness campaign tackling the latest fraud methods. 

The Saudi Banks Media and Awareness Committee has launched an awareness campaign tackling the latest fraud methods.

The initiative, "Not normal", aims to expose new methods of financial fraud that exploit technological and social advances.

The initiative focuses on the most common fraud methods, which include impersonating a bank employee, defrauding through anonymous calls and exploiting people by demanding their banking or personal information, and defrauding customers through fake online stores and phishing.

The initiative aims to expose fraud when investing in digital currencies with unknown people or companies.

It targets emotional fraud when people are exploited through a friend request on social media. People can also be deceived through lucrative job offers that sound too good to be true.

The committee warned people to be careful. It advised them against answering telephone calls from unknown numbers where the caller asks for bank details. People must be wary of fake ads and suspicious messages. They must ignore text messages and emails from unknown senders and delete them immediately.

It called on bank customers to protect their accounts and funds by strictly dealing with official authorities.

It stressed the importance of protecting their personal information, bank data and passwords and pin numbers. Moreover, customers must avoid accepting requests for assistance from strangers when using an ATM.

Customers were advised to check the credibility of online shopping websites and travelers were urged to change the password of their bank cards periodically, especially when returning from travel.

Computers must be protected with virus and malware protection programs.



ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
TT

ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde renewed her call for economic integration across Europe on Friday, arguing that intensifying global trade tensions and a growing technology gap with the United States create fresh urgency for action.
US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to impose tariffs on most if not all imports and said Europe would pay a heavy price for having run a large trade surplus with the US for decades.
"The geopolitical environment has also become less favorable, with growing threats to free trade from all corners of the world," Lagarde said in a speech, without directly referring to Trump.
"The urgency to integrate our capital markets has risen."
While Europe has made some progress, EU members tend to water down most proposals to protect vested national interests to the detriment of the bloc as a whole, Reuters quoted Lagarde as saying.
But this is taking hundreds of billions if not trillions of euros out of the economy as households are holding 11.5 trillion euros in cash and deposits, and much of this is not making its way to the firms that need the funding.
"If EU households were to align their deposit-to-financial assets ratio with that of US households, a stock of up to 8 trillion euros could be redirected into long-term, market-based investments – or a flow of around 350 billion euros annually," Lagarde said.
When the cash actually enters the capital market, it often stays within national borders or leaves for the US in hope of better returns, Lagarde added.
Europe therefore needs to reduce the cost of investing in capital markets and must make the regulatory regime easier for cash to flow to places where it is needed the most.
A solution might be to create an EU-wide regulatory regime on top of the 27 national rules and certain issuers could then opt into this framework.
"To bypass the cumbersome process of regulatory harmonization, we could envisage a 28th regime for issuers of securities," Lagarde said. "They would benefit from a unified corporate and securities law, facilitating cross-border placement, holding and settlement."
Still, that would not solve the problem that few innovative companies set up shop in Europe, partly due to the lack of funding. So Europe must make it easier for investment to flow into venture capital and for banks to fund startups, she said.