Scotiabank helps fill the education gap, offering interactive fraud simulations to help customers identify financial fraud

TORONTO, March 2, 2023 /CNW/ - According to a recent Scotiabank Youth Fraud poll, 63% of young Canadians have not been educated in school about financial fraud or how to protect themselves from scammers. Three out of four young Canadians have been targeted or fallen victim to various financial fraud scams via email, phone, text, credit card, or social media. While March is recognized as Fraud Prevention Month, Scotiabank is reminding Canadians of the importance of staying alert all year long and recently launched its redesigned Cybersecurity and Fraud Hub to help Canadians identify and protect themselves from financial fraud and cybercrime.

"Fraud Prevention Month is a time to bring awareness and education around common scams and financial fraud. However, we want this to be a conversation not just in March, but every month," said Tammy McKinnon, Senior Vice President, Global Fraud Management, Scotiabank. "Financial fraud can have detrimental long-term effects and thousands of Canadians are impacted yearly. In fact, 87% of Canadian youth say more education is needed around financial fraud awareness. Knowledge is power. It's up to us as a community to educate and prepare our future generations," McKinnon added.

Scotiabank customers can sign-up for InfoAlerts to be notified of suspicious transactions and monitor their spending with Scotia Smart Money by Advice+. Scotia Smart Money is a free tool available to personal banking customers using the Scotiabank mobile app¹. To learn more visit Scotia Smart Money by Advice+ .

"Scotiabank plays an important role in educating our customers and keeping them informed about the current trends in threats or scams, to protect themselves and their families from fraud," said Kingsley Chak, Senior Vice President, Deposits, Savings and Investments at Scotiabank. "Scotia Smart Money by Advice+ not only helps you reach your financial goals, it provides insights, helps you manage cash flow and budgeting, while also alerting you to suspicious transactions," added Chak.

Scotiabank suggests the following Top 10 Tips to keep Canadians of all ages safe from financial fraud:

1. Sign up to get notifications from your bank about suspicious transactions
2. Do not respond to unsolicited marketing emails/texts/direct messages
3. Activate 2-step verification on your online accounts
4. Add a lock screen feature on your mobile device and use biometrics to enable access to your device and accounts
5. Never divulge or share your PIN/password with anyone
6. Don't write your PIN/password on a piece of paper
7. Select a PIN/password that's not easily recognizable, avoid common personal information, numbers and words, and regularly change your password
8. Update your computer and/or mobile operating system as new versions often contain strengthened security
9. Shop only from reputable online retailers and only conduct online shopping/banking from trusted devices (i.e., personal smartphone or home computer)
10. Protect yourself from identify theft by shielding your private information when in public and limiting the amount of personal information you share on social media

For more tips and to learn more, visit the Scotiabank Cybersecurity and Fraud Hub: Scotiabank.com/Security

The Scotiabank Youth Fraud poll conducted by Maru Public Opinion with its sample and data collection experts at Maru/Blue on January 16-17, 2023, among a random selection of 488 respondents (83 aged 18-24 and 405 parents of children aged 13-17) who are Maru Voice Canada online panelists. The results of this study have been weighted by education, age, gender and region (and in Quebec, language) to match the population, according to Census data. This is to ensure the sample is representative of the youth population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size has an estimated margin of error (which measures sampling variability) of +/- 4.4%, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals when compared to the data tables are due to rounding.

Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our customers, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of over 90,000 employees and assets of over $1.3 trillion (as at January 31, 2023), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please visit http://www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @Scotiabank.

SOURCE Scotiabank