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In view of the increasing number of fake bank websites and e-mails reported recently, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has today (September 30) issued a circular to all authorised institutions (AIs) to reiterate the importance of putting in place appropriate precautionary measures to guard against fraud.

The circular recommends the following precautionary measures to AIs:

* they should not send e-mails to customers with embedded hyperlinks to the transactional websites

* they should inform customers directly that they and their agents/business partners will never send e-mails with embedded hyperlinks to transactional websites to their customers or ask for sensitive account and personal information via e-mails

* they should put a high priority for implementing two-factor authentication to further strengthen the security controls for retail Internet banking services.

The HKMA would also like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public that they should not access their Internet banking accounts through hyperlinks embedded in e-mails or Internet search engines. Instead, they should access their Internet banking accounts by keying in the website addresses at the address bar of the browser, or by bookmarking the genuine website and using that function to access their Internet banking accounts. If in doubt, customers should contact their banks immediately.

The circular is now available at the HKMA's website http://www.hkma.gov.hk.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Kevin Ip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687 or

Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Ends/Thursday, September 30, 2004

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