Voice phishing-linked frozen bank accounts set to hit record high this year

More than 150,000 bank accounts at Korea’s six largest commercial lenders were used in voice phishing crimes over the past five years, government data showed Thursday. The figure comes amid a growing push by lawmakers and financial regulators for legislation that would hold banks partially liable for compensating victims, in a stronger measure to curb financial fraud. Experts say Korea should establish a system that allows real-time information sharing among banks, law enforcement entities and financial regulators. Ministry of Science and ICT data showed that voice phishing damages exceeded 600 billion won ($432 million) in the first half of this year, up from 324.3 billion won from the previous year. According to Rep. Park Sung-hoon of the main opposition People Power Party, a total of 150,082 accounts across the country’s top six lenders — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH NongHyup and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) — were frozen after being confirmed as fraud-related between 2020 and March this year. The data provided by the Financial Supervisory Service was based on claimsWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times