Scam Getting More Sophisticated, OJK Partners with UNODC to Strengthen Consumer Protection Fortress

JAKARTA - The Financial Services Authority (OJK) continues to strengthen consumer protection efforts from the threat of digital scams or fraud that not only causes financial losses for the community, but also has the potential to erode trust in the financial services sector.

As part of this step, OJK has cooperated with various partners, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to increase stakeholders' understanding of increasingly complex and cross-border digital fraud schemes.

This was conveyed by the Chairperson of the OJK Commission Board, Friderica Widyasari Dewi, in a seminar entitled Strengthening Defenses Against Scams: Addressing AML Vulnerabilities and Compliance in Digital Finance and Virtual Assets.

"Fraud can cross national borders in seconds, harnessing technology on a massive scale, and damaging something far more valuable than money, namely trust," he said in a statement, Monday, July 6.

He emphasized that trust is the main foundation of the financial system, so that efforts to eradicate digital fraud are not only aimed at preventing losses to the community, but also maintaining the integrity of the financial sector so that digital transformation can continue to provide benefits on an ongoing basis.

Friderica explained that scams have now evolved into a serious threat to the stability of the financial system, so a strong partnership between the public and private sectors (public-private partnership/PPP) is needed to strengthen data exchange, intelligence information, and cross-sector and cross-country coordination.

He added that as the financial sector becomes more digitized, fraud patterns are also becoming more complex through the use of money mule, merchant and sub-merchant accounts, digital payment systems, and virtual assets that make it difficult to track perpetrators.

Based on data from the Indonesia Anti-Scam Center (IASC) until June 2026, more than 608 thousand reports of fraud have been recorded, with more than 557 thousand accounts blocked, and funds worth Rp. 674 billion have been secured or blocked, while almost Rp. 200 billion in funds belonging to victims have been successfully returned.

On the same occasion, UN Resident Coordinator in Indonesia, Gita Sabharwal, expressed appreciation to the Indonesian Government and OJK for their leadership in developing the Indonesia Anti-Scam Centre as an effort to strengthen protection against fraud crimes.

According to Gita, the impact of scams is not only in the form of financial losses, but also reduces public confidence in digital financial services.

"Beyond the direct financial losses, every successful fraud erodes trust in digital financial services and weakens the trust that is the foundation of financial inclusion. Therefore, protecting this trust is very important," said Gita.

He assessed that digital transformation in Indonesia opens up great opportunities for increased financial inclusion, innovation, and economic growth. However, these benefits can only be realized if the community has confidence in the system used.

Gita also emphasized that the partnership between UNODC and OJK allows for support in the form of policy formulation, technical assistance, and sharing global experiences in strengthening efforts to prevent fraud crimes.

Meanwhile, the Resident Advisor of the United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Justin Brown, emphasized that handling online fraud requires close collaboration between the government, regulators, financial services industry players, and law enforcement.

"Online fraud is no longer just a matter of law enforcement. Fraud is also a challenge for the financial sector, regulators, and consumer protection which requires a strong response through public-private sector collaboration," said Justin.

According to him, transnational criminal networks cannot be handled partially so they require strong international cooperation.

The seminar also featured a High-Level Dialogue session with speakers from UNODC, Singapore Police Force, and the banking industry which discussed the challenges of cross-border fraud and the importance of strengthening public-private partnerships in prevention and handling.

In addition, a technical discussion session involving the Indonesia Anti-Scam Centre, OJK, Bank Indonesia, and the banking industry discussed strengthening customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, merchant and sub-merchant supervision, and the use of technology to detect and trace transaction patterns that are suspected of being fraud.

Through the forum, stakeholders strengthen their joint commitment to building a more robust anti-scam ecosystem through increased information exchange, strengthening intelligence and fraud detection, increasing industry capacity, and cross-sector and cross-country collaboration to support prevention, handling, and recovery of victims' losses in a more integrated manner.

As a concrete implementation of the partnership, the Indonesia Anti-Scam Center continues to strengthen coordination between regulators, financial services industries, payment service providers, law enforcement, and other stakeholders to accelerate the handling of fraud reports, blocking related accounts, and returning funds to victims.

The success of the recovery of these funds shows that cross-sector collaboration is able to provide real benefits for the community.

OJK believes that strengthening public-private partnerships, both at the national and international levels, will be an important factor in building a safer, more resilient, and more trusted digital financial ecosystem, while maintaining the integrity of the Indonesian financial system amid the increasingly dynamic development of financial crime.

OJK also urges the public to increase vigilance against various digital fraud modes by not being easily tempted by unreasonable offers, always ensuring the legality of business actors and financial services products through the OJK Contact 157, maintaining the confidentiality of personal data including OTP codes and passwords, and immediately reporting suspected illegal financial activities through sipasti.ojk.go.id and financial transaction fraud through iasc.ojk.go.id.