Keeping your money safe: Why we sometimes hit pause
At ZA Bank, we love speed. We built this digital bank so you could open an account in minutes and move money in seconds. We know that’s why you’re here.
But there’s something we care about even more than being fast: keeping your money safe.
The reality is that financial crime in Hong Kong is rising. According to the latest Police figures, a total of 28,379 fraud cases were reported in the first eight months of this year alone, amounting to staggering financial losses of HKD 5.02 billion1. These losses are the hard-earned money of countless citizens, and the fraudsters’ tactics are getting smarter.
Why is stopping fraud so hard?
You might think spotting a scammer is easy, but the reality is much tougher.
1. Fraudsters are professionals: Modern fraudsters are sophisticated, well-funded and highly organised, often operating as part of criminal syndicates. They run complex, scalable operations that can trick thousands of people at once. Catching them is an engineering challenge, not just a checklist.
2. It’s a never-ending game of ‘Cat and Mouse': Fraudsters move fast. When banks shut down one scam, fraudsters pivot to a new one instantly. It’s a constant cycle. That means we can’t just build a wall and walk away; we have to be constantly watching, updating, and shipping new controls to see where they will strike next.
3. The "Needle in a Haystack" problem: Here is the math problem we face every day: The vast majority of transactions are perfectly fine. Only a tiny fraction—maybe 1 in 10,000—is fraud. Finding that single bad transaction without blocking the other 9,999 good ones is incredibly difficult.
If we intervene correctly: We save a customer from losing their life savings. We have to balance this carefully. We need to be right, but we also want you to live your life with ease.
The tech you don't see
We don’t fight fraud with clipboards and manual checks. We use a 24 x 7 “always-on” defense.
XDecision is our proprietary, real-time monitoring system. Think of it as the brain behind our security, continuously reviewing transactions at scale over 1,300,000 reviews daily. Because we know you value speed, we engineered it to be lightning-fast: 90% of reviews are completed within just 0.2 seconds2 , keeping your transactions moving while we spot troubles instantly.
Every time you use ZA Bank App, our systems analyze user behaviors in milliseconds. It helps us spot "stooge accounts" (accounts used by criminals to hide money) and shut them down before they can do harm. We’ve invested heavily to make sure our platform is a hostile place for fraudsters.
Why we restrict accounts
Sometimes, despite our best tech, we need to hit the brakes. You might find a payment is delayed or your account is temporarily restricted.
We understand this is frustrating. It’s stressful when you can’t access your money. But there’s always a reason.
Think of these restrictions as a safety net. When our system detects something unusual—like a payment that matches a known scam pattern—it pauses the transaction to protect you.
With thousands of scams happening every month in our city, we need to make sure that transactions are genuinely authorised by you. We also have strict legal duties to prevent money laundering, which means we sometimes have to freeze funds while we investigate.
Our commitment to your safety is to deliver tangible results. In addition to receiving the “Real Time Monitoring Award” at the Outstanding Banking Staff Commendation Ceremony organised by the Hong Kong Police Force this year, our fraud prevention effectiveness has continued to strengthen in practice.
Safety first, speed second
We’re constantly tuning our system to be smarter and more precise. But in a world where professional scammers work around the clock, a little friction is sometimes inevitable.
If we ask you to re-verify your identity or explain how you’re using the account, or if a transfer takes a little longer than usual, it’s because we’re prioritizing your security over everything else and working to prevent bad actors from carrying out illicit activities.
Thanks for trusting us to keep your money safe. We’re working hard every day to stay one step ahead.
1. Figures from the Hong Kong Police Force
2. Based on ZA Bank’s internal data