AustraliaFinance and insurance2023 – ongoingCommonwealth Bank of Australia
AI scam and fraud protection for customers
Commonwealth Bank used AI alerts and payee checks as customer scam losses fell more than 76% from their peak
Problem
Australian bank customers were losing growing sums to scams, such as fake callers and payments to fraudsters posing as genuine payees, with losses at Commonwealth Bank peaking in the first half of fiscal 2023. The bank also wanted to shorten wait times in its call centers.
Approach
The bank introduced security features including NameCheck, which flags when a payee name does not match the account, CallerCheck and CustomerCheck, along with suspicious-transaction alerts sent through its app that use AI, including generative AI. It also used AI-powered messaging in the app to handle customer service requests. It reported investing more than $900 million in fiscal 2025 to protect customers from fraud, scams, cyber threats and financial crime.
Results
Takeaway
Customer protection drove the bank's AI work in a business where trust affects revenue, with no aim to cut staff. Its own scam-loss figures combined all anti-scam measures without isolating AI; reported reductions rose from 50% in late 2024 to more than 76% by mid-2025 over different measurement periods.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Finance and insurance
- Business function
- Finance, risk and legalCustomer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovationProduct and service innovation
- AI technology
- Predictive analytics and MLGenerative AI
- Adoption
- Built in-house
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
The bank's full-year results announcement lists, among its customer outcomes, more than $900 million invested in protection against fraud, scams, cyber threats and financial crime. It says customer scam losses fell by more than 76% from their peak, comparing the second half of fiscal 2025 with the first half of fiscal 2023, and that AI is used to send up to 35,000 suspicious-transaction alerts a day from the CommBank app.
The half-year announcement reports $450 million invested in the half to protect customers from fraud, scams and financial and cyber crime. It says customer scam losses were down more than 70% over two years, that NameCheck had been used more than 80 million times and prevented $650 million in mistaken and scam payments, and that AI-supported suspicious-transaction alerts had risen sixfold to 18,000 a day.
Reports the bank's statement that AI-based features such as NameCheck, CallerCheck and CustomerCheck had cut customer scam losses by 50%. It adds that generative AI suspicious-transaction alerts reduced customer-reported fraud by 30% and that AI messaging in the app cut call-center wait times by 40% over the past financial year, and quotes CEO Matt Comyn on AI's role in customer relationships.
Full details are in the original sources.
