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.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
RSS