Major domestic banks are suspending their advertising on Facebook due to concerns over rampant financial scams on the social media platform.
Mega Financial Holding Co, along with its subsidiaries and other local banks, is pulling its ads from the global social network, chairman Ray Dawn (董瑞斌) told reporters yesterday.
The bank has already stopped advertising on Facebook, after spending about NT$16 million (US$493,523) on ads hosted on it annually, he said.
Photo: AFP
The surprise move follows growing pressure on social media leaders to do more to curtail online scams, which are on the rise, especially in economies with aging populations.
While the amounts in Taiwan are small, the concerted action taken by the nation’s lenders could encourage institutions elsewhere to apply real financial pressure on Meta and its peers.
“There have been endless scams on Facebook, with some fraudsters assuming the identities of banks. We hope Facebook can prioritize resolving this issue, so we will withdraw advertising on the platform with other banks in Taiwan,” Dawn said.
Ten local banks, including Mega and Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (SCSB), are to join the campaign, he added.
An SCSB spokesman confirmed the joint action with Mega and said the bank had also pulled its advertisements from Facebook, although he declined to comment on SCSB’s spending on the platform.
A Meta representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“We will stop advertising through Internet influencers,” CTBC Financial Holding Co president and spokeswoman Rachael Kao (高麗雪) said on an earnings call.
“We are willing to take down advertisements that are not from verified accounts,” Kao said.
The Ministry of the Interior in August said that online investment scams are the top cause for the loss of assets among the Taiwanese public.
In July, among all reported scam cases, 97.9 percent of the victims saw fraudulent ads first on Facebook, and 2.1 percent on Alphabet Inc’s Google, the ministry said.
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