Malaysia FIs Study | Fraud prevention trends

Combatting escalating fraud in a digital world

Download our report to find out how financial institutions in Malaysia are safeguarding their digital products and channels in an age of increased digital adoption.

85%


of FIs predict an increase in scams in the next year

85%


% of FIs use data from interconnected devices

49%


of FIs actively use machine learning in fraud management

69% of financial institutions in Malaysia report difficulties in incorporating new regulations issued in the last six months, as well as past regulations.

In this report, we analyse emerging trends in Malaysia’s financial institutions (FIs), their digitalisation priorities and existing gaps in fraud control and mitigation.

The study gauges the digitalisation priorities of FIs, assessing key fraud and security challenges, as well as evaluating the existing gaps that need to be overcome to mitigate fraud in a rapidly digitalising world.

Findings

Digital adoption of digital channels accelerated across financial services, higher than the regional average. Digital transaction volume growth is expected to speed up over the next three years.

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Regulatory penalties emerge as the largest fraud-related loss as regulator tighten controls and expect FIs to prevent, detect and recover faster from fraud.

Organisational integration across compliance, fraud and cybersecurity functions lag behind the regional average. More FIs in Malaysia share data across two of three of these functions.

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Continual upskilling and technology development for a holistic approach are being taken by FIs, with institutions looking to continually upgrade staff capabilities, in line with the regional trend.

Scams and money laundering are emerging as key threats, with the majority of Malaysian FIs predicting increases in the next year. The previous year saw scams, phishing and malware increase at a rate higher than the regional average.

Data standardisation has become a key gap for FIs. More than half consider it a high priority to integrate data across siloes. Small and medium enterprise (SME) and corporate customer data alongside integration of unstructured data are being prioritised to improve fraud management.

Adoption of machine learning, robotic analytics and endpoint threat detection in Malaysian FIs is marginally ahead of regional peers. Fraud management in onboarding, electronic know your customer (eKYC), ML and new data outputs are being focused on addressing risks in customer transactions.

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