Imagine receiving a call from what sounds like your bank’s fraud department. The voice is crisp, professional, and reassuring. It warns of suspicious activity on your account and offers to help you secure your funds. Within minutes, they’ve stolen everything – because it wasn’t your bank at all.
This alarming evolution of financial crime is pushing both regulators and banks to rethink their security strategies. The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) has issued an urgent warning that criminals are using artificial intelligence to clone voices, impersonate bank officials and trick unsuspecting victims into handing over their life savings.
Deepfake banking
Fraudsters are no longer just using phishing emails and fake banking apps. They are leveraging AI to:
- Clone the voices of real bank representatives using deepfake audio.
- Generate fake WhatsApp messages and investment offers that look identical to legitimate banking communications.
- Create professional-looking apps and websites that steal personal and banking information.
- Use AI chatbots to engage victims in real time, making scams more convincing than ever before.
According to Sabric, these scams are becoming harder to detect, with fraudsters replicating banking communication with near-perfect precision. Reports indicate that even experienced investors and professionals have been deceived.
Digital fraud, real losses
The impact is devastating. Sabric reports cases where:
- A Johannesburg man lost R6-million after believing he was investing in a legitimate stock trading platform, backed by what appeared to be official bank correspondence.
- A woman in Durban lost more than R100,000 to a fraudulent broker who lured her into transferring funds to a fake investment scheme.
“These scams feel real, and that’s what makes them so dangerous,” said Sabric CEO Nischal Mewalall in a consumer alert issued on Tuesday, 18 March.
How to protect yourself from fraud
Sabric recommends these steps to avoid becoming a victim:
- Be wary of investment offers promising guaranteed returns. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- Never download banking apps from links sent via WhatsApp, SMS, or email. Always use official app stores.
- Verify before you trust. If someone claims to be from your bank, hang up and call the official number directly.
- Banks will never ask for your PIN, OTP, or banking passwords.
- Report suspicious activity Contact your bank and report fraud attempts. DM