HKMA banks on 'despicable banana' to fight rising scams

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a new video series, named "Click the links, fall for scams" (撳LINK中‘蕉’), to raise public awareness of frauds amid growing scam cases.

The HKMA released the first video in the series on Wednesday, featuring a "despicable banana", a seemingly innocent character that ultimately exposes its greedy nature once it lures in its victims. In Cantonese, the pronunciation of "banana" is identical to the word used for falling into scammers' traps. Two more episodes will be released over the next few weeks, focusing on investment frauds and job scams.

The series serves as a timely reminder in an era where financial security is constantly under threat, equipping the public with knowledge to protect their property from malicious schemes.

Back in January, the regulator teased the campaign on its social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to HKMA for a statement.

This comes as over 44,000 scam cases were recorded last year, up about 12% from 2023, according to Hong Kong police chief Raymond Siu, adding that scams made up nearly half of the 94,000 crimes recorded in the city over the past year. Despite the number of scam cases last year growing at a slower pace at around 12%, compared with more than 40% in 2023, the amount involved reached HK$9.15 billion.

The growth in scam cases was mainly attributed to the emergence of the new modus operandi of telephone deception involving “Impersonating Customer Service” since early 2023. A total of 5,575 cases of such modus operandi were reported in 2024, far exceeding the overall increase of 4,656 cases in deception.

According to police data shared by the HKMA, a fake customer service phone scam that began circulating last year resulted in 5,575 cases in 2024. Investment scams totalled 4,753 cases, marking a 25% decrease from 2023, while employment scams saw a 3.9% increase from the previous year, reaching 4,083 cases.

Back in August 2024, HKMA and the police force said that the scope of the Suspicious Account Alert mechanism had been extended from the faster payment system to cover internet banking and physical branch transactions, and it was further expanded in December 2024 to include transactions at automated teller machines. The mechanism has covered the majority of the public’s day-to-day transfers. If the recipient’s account number is labelled as suspicious in the “Scameter” database, the system will send a high risk alert to the customer before confirming the transaction.

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