SINGAPORE: The Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board has “no intent” to consider the use of insurance schemes to protect CPF members who are victims of scams, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said on Tuesday (Jul 4).
MOM’s statement, issued on Tuesday night, came hours after Manpower Minister Tan See Leng suggested that the government was considering insurance to protect Singaporeans from CPF scam losses.
The CPF Board is a statutory board under MOM.
Dr Tan was replying in parliament to Associate Professor Jamus Lim (WP-Sengkang), who had asked if the government was “considering initiatives along the lines of insurance” as a protective measure against online scammers cheating Singaporeans of their CPF savings.
The minister said that insurance falls “under the Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) that involves the financial institutions, the telcos and many other participating entities”, referring to a framework announced in February 2022 to outline an equitable way to share liabilities among parties in scam cases.
In its statement on Tuesday night, MOM clarified that insurance schemes are not part of the SRF.
The framework “focuses on strengthening the roles and accountabilities of the key parties who can mitigate the risk of phishing scams and to preserve confidence in digital payments and banking in Singapore”, said MOM.
“This includes making clear the duties of such key parties – financial institutions and telcos in particular, given the focus on phishing scams – and the responsibility of customers themselves to be vigilant against scams.”
The SRF is a “distinct and separate approach from scam insurance, where a third party provides guarantee of compensation to an insured party, when he or she suffers scam losses”, the ministry said.
MOM added that the government has been in discussions with financial institutions and telcos about the framework and will continue to study its scope, including the type of scams and roles of other entities in the digital payments ecosystem.