Jamus Lim on building an inclusive and safe digital society
A proposed shared responsibility framework for losses due to phishing scams is a step forward in helping to establish liability on financial fraud, but does not fulfil "its fundamental promise of being fair”, said MP Jamus Lim in Parliament on Wednesday (Jan 10). He explained why he believed that the inherent imbalance in power meant losses would almost always be overwhelmingly borne by the consumer rather than the bank or telco. Assoc Prof Lim said this has led to “a steady erosion of trust in digital transactions” which, if not addressed expeditiously, could result in a “crisis of confidence” over online payments and digital finance. He said that to rebuild trust, regulators should require actual loss absorption by financial institutions and communications companies, with an upper limit to consumer liability of S$100 or S$500. He said this would not only be fair, but also help evolve the system in the long run to a more robust one as companies would be incentivised to implement more safeguards against fraud.
A proposed shared responsibility framework for losses due to phishing scams is a step forward in helping to establish liability on financial fraud, but does not fulfil "its fundamental promise of being fair”, said MP Jamus Lim in Parliament on Wednesday (Jan 10). He explained why he believed that the inherent imbalance in power meant losses would almost always be overwhelmingly borne by the consumer rather than the bank or telco. Assoc Prof Lim said this has led to “a steady erosion of trust in digital transactions” which, if not addressed expeditiously, could result in a “crisis of confidence” over online payments and digital finance. He said that to rebuild trust, regulators should require actual loss absorption by financial institutions and communications companies, with an upper limit to consumer liability of S$100 or S$500. He said this would not only be fair, but also help evolve the system in the long run to a more robust one as companies would be incentivised to implement more safeguards against fraud.
