Financial watchdog develops AI platform to combat text scams

SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Yonhap) -- The financial watchdog said Tuesday it has developed an artificial intelligence platform to help people spot text message scams.

The platform was jointly developed by Kookmin Bank and Amazon.com's cloud computing affiliate, Amazon Web Services, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said in a statement.

The platform's algorithms automatically analyze possible text message scams, known as "smishing," and give people a warning, the FSS said.

Using and analyzing a wide variety of customer data, such algorithms are also expected to help consumers better deal with other financial fraud, the regulator said.

The algorithms will be provided to financial technology firms for free, allowing them to develop smartphone apps that help people identify text message scams, the FSS said.

Last month, the FSS launched a fresh campaign to eradicate phone scams known as "voice phishing," calling for banks and other financial institutions to make more efforts to protect their customers.

Such scams involve the use of fraudulent phone calls that trick people into giving away private financial information, enabling scammers to access their accounts.

kdh@yna.co.kr
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