Kuwait Finance House (KFH) has organized, through its account on "Instagram", an educational seminar in collaboration with the Kuwait Public Relations Association on fraud and e-crimes targeting bank accounts. This initiative comes within the framework of supporting the banking awareness campaign “Diraya” and continuing KFH's efforts in combating cybercrime.

Acting Group Deputy General Manager Cards at KFH, Talal Al-Arbeed, said that KFH is keen to raise societal awareness of the risks posed by cybercrime, enhance the public’s financial literacy, and raise levels of security and protection for them while using the products or services of the bank.

Al-Arbeed added that with the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic globally, electronic services and digital banking operations witnessed a remarkable increase which coincided with an increase in cyber risks and e-frauds. Therefore, it was necessary to raise awareness among customers of these challenges and to address e-fraud by not sharing any confidential information, such as account numbers, bank cards, passwords, PINs and card security code (CSC), and to avoid answering any phone calls or suspicious messages that they may receive, whether it was through messages SMS or via social media, especially if the sender’s number is unknown.

Al-Arbeed pointed out that the educational seminars and awareness messages that are continuously published on the website or accounts on social media are an important part of KFH’s efforts to combat cybercrime and fraud, coinciding with the expansion of banks in providing services online or through smart phones.

As part of “Diraya” campaign launched by the Central Bank of Kuwait and Kuwait Banking Association to spread banking awareness, KFH seeks to avoid the impact of cyber risks by enhancing procedures for the safety and confidentiality of customer information, measuring risks to identify any potential threats, and setting specific standards as well as utilizing advanced protection programs such as passwords for financial transactions, services provided through the Internet, and other confidential information of customers.

Al-Arbeed also stressed that KFH is committed to applying the best methods of hedging against crimes and e-frauds, such as the permanent review of KFH’s systems, evaluation of the security and safety of services that the bank provides to its customers electronically and activating supervision and controlling measures that ensure the readiness of the systems to address any hacking attempts and malicious programs.

The campaign “Diraya” aims to enhance and support the goals of the Central Bank of Kuwait and its social program which aims to spread banking knowledge among society members, increase public awareness on the most important financial issues and on the way to protect assets from fraudulence. Also, it aims to highlight the banking sector role in general, and the banking products provided by the private sector, by introducing a set of instructions and information on regular basis through social media in cooperation with Kuwait banking association and local banks. The campaign will continue till the end of this year.

It is worth noting that KFH always works on organizing training courses for its employees to increase their experience level and encourage them to transfer information in a simplified manner to customers through direct contact in the service centers, social media channels and various electronic channels of the bank.