This Scams Awareness Week, Australians will hear from banks, telcos, digital platforms and the National Anti-Scam Centre about how they’re working to fight scams – and that shared goal is exactly why protections keep getting stronger.  

This year’s theme, ‘No one’s just a number’, is a reminder of what’s at stake: behind every scam report is a real person.  

Bringing together eftpos, BPAY and real-time payments platform the NPP (Osko, PayID, PayTo), AP+ plays a central role in Australia’s payments system. When protections are built in at this level, they can work consistently across banks and payment providers and can continue evolving as scam tactics do too.  

“No one’s just a number, and no payment is just a transaction – it's someone’s rent, someone’s invoice, someone’s savings. That’s why protection can’t be an add-on, it has to be built into how Australia pays,” said Lynn Kraus, CEO of AP+.  

Before money moves: know who you’re paying 

Most scams succeed before payment is ever made – by convincing someone that money is required and should be paid.. Two protections that can help at exactly that moment are PayID and Confirmation of Payee. 

PayID removes the risk of typing the wrong account number by letting people send money to a registered mobile number, email address or ABN – and showing who they’re paying before they hit send.  

Confirmation of Payee lets payers check the name on an account before money is sent to a BSB and account number, reducing the risk of scams and mistaken payments.  

With over 37 million registered PayIDs and over 170 million Confirmation of Payee checks completed, these protections have quietly become part of everyday payments. 

While money moves: spotting trouble in real time 

Even careful payers can be caught by sophisticated scams, which is why protections also run in the background as transactions happen. eftpos debit transactions are supported by a near real-time fraud scoring system that analyses transaction patterns to help banks identify potentially fraudulent activity as it occurs. Tokenisation adds another layer, replacing sensitive card data with digital tokens for online payments – making card details inaccessible to scammers if a token is intercepted. 

Beyond the payment: less data for scammers to steal 

Many scams begin with stolen personal information. ConnectID helps reduce what’s out there to steal: people verify only the details a business needs through an organisation they already trust, like their bank, so identity documents don’t have to be collected and stored. As Australia’s recently expanded anti-money laundering rules bring more businesses into identity verification – from real estate agencies to legal and accounting firms – keeping sensitive data out of circulation matters more than ever.  

Staying safe is a shared responsibility 

Built-in protections do a lot of the work, but they’re most effective alongside simple scam-smart habits – and alongside talking openly about scams, because no one should feel embarrassed about being targeted. This week, remember to: