The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has made it incumbent on banks to conduct a mandatory name-matching process on customers for real-time fund transfers, the latest step by the city’s financial regulator to tackle scams.
Financial institutions have been urged to adopt “refined measures” on their instant fund transfer systems such as the Faster Payment System (FPS) and intra-bank fund systems, according to a statement issued by the HKMA on Tuesday.
For transactions exceeding HK$1,000 (US$128) or other currencies of an equivalent amount, banks were now required to check customers’ names in real time, according to the HKMA. The banks have until the end of May to comply with the measure.
A previous announcement by the HKMA in 2021 required banks to conduct the mandatory name-matching process on real-time fund transfers of HK$10,000 or above.
Transfer instructions that do not pass the mandatory name-matching process would be rejected by the payee institutions, and banks were required to inform the customer that the transfer instruction was unsuccessful or rejected, the statement added.
