Hong Kong to Introduce ATM Pop-Up Warnings Amid Rising Scam Losses

Hong Kong banks will implement pop-up warnings on ATMs by the end of March 2025 in a bid to combat soaring scam losses, which have reached HK$6.41 billion in the first three quarters of this year, according to the police chief Raymond Siu Chak-yee.

Raymond Siu Chak-yee revealed that fraud involving deepfake technology could become the next major threat, even as the rise in reported scams has slowed. To enhance prevention measures, the anti-fraud alerts currently displayed on the Hong Kong Faster Payment System (FPS) will extend to ATMs by the end of the first quarter of next year.

“If a victim is paying a scammer via an ATM, [the machine] will also pop up an alert, so that will be 100 per cent coverage,” he said.

Since November last year, FPS users have received warnings when they enter details of recipient accounts flagged by the police’s Scameter database as high risk. About 715,000 alerts have been sent to date.