NAB prompts lead customers to reconsider $50m in payments

NAB is hailing the success of its payment prompts, claiming customers had so far abandoned $50 million in payments after receiving the messages.

The prompts are designed to tell a customer if a payment looks out-of-place given their transaction history, helping customers avoid both scams and their own errors in setting up new payments.

In May, NAB’s chief digital officer Sujeet Rana told iTnews the prompts are based on a real-time call to the bank’s fraud engine, when a customer enters a payee for the first time.

Group investigations and fraud executive Chris Sheehan said today that while "many customers ultimately complete their payment after receiving an alert, we know many are stopping and checking because we’ve seen $50 million worth of payments completely abandoned."

“That’s an average of $220,000 each day.”

The bank also announced today that it would integrate debit and credit card reporting in its online channels.

NAB will add the reports to the messaging capability in its internet banking and its mobile app, giving customers a reporting channel that doesn’t require a phone call.

Sheehan said around 60 percent of calls to the bank’s fraud and scams team were about card fraud, making the bank’s trusted apps a logical reporting channel.

“With 74 percent of customers now exclusively using digital channels, we’re moving to give customers the choice to report card fraud via NAB messaging in the NAB app or internet banking in addition to the existing way of calling us,” Sheehan said.

Phone reporting will still be available, and Sheehan said the phone team has grown by 70 staff members in the last year, reducing wait times from 50 minutes to around 10 minutes.