[SINGAPORE] Bank customers have stowed away billions using anti-scam tools that allow funds to be locked up.
No less than 370,000 individuals have utilised money locking features rolled out by banks across Singapore to protect more than S$30 billion worth of funds as at Jun 30, according to the Singapore Police Force Mid-Year Scam and Cybercrime Brief 2025.
Money locking features – tools that allow customers to ringfence a portion of funds in their bank accounts such that the money cannot be withdrawn digitally – reduce the risk of unauthorised transfers.
Such tools were launched by Singapore’s three lenders DBS, OCBC and UOB in November 2023. Subsequently, the Monetary Authority of Singapore worked with other major retail banks to roll out such features in 2024.
The police highlighted that customers’ usage of money locking tools has risen since they were introduced.
Beyond the three local banks, five other prominent banks that The Business Times spoke to said they have rolled out their version of a money lock tool. These are Citibank, CIMB Singapore, Bank of China’s (BOC) Singapore branch, Standard Chartered and Maybank.
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Digital banks have followed suit, with the three digital banks in Singapore that serve retail customers launching a money lock feature in 2025.
Grab and Singtel-backed GXS Bank and Sea’s MariBank announced their versions of the feature in August, while Trust Bank – started by StanChart and FairPrice – rolled out its service in March this year.
“Encouraging” reception
UOB said its customers’ response to its money lock feature has been “encouraging”, with more than 160,000 using it as at end-July.
Beaver Chua, head of anti-fraud, group financial crime compliance at OCBC, said the feature has been “well-received” since its launch.
“As at Aug 26, 2025, close to S$13 billion has been locked up in over 108,000 OCBC current accounts, savings accounts and time deposit accounts,” he said.
DBS observed that its equivalent of the money lock feature, digiVault, received “strong uptake across all demographics”.
Meanwhile, CIMB Singapore said more than 6,400 customers used its money lock tool to secure more than S$310 million in funds.
BOC’s Singapore branch said more than 5,000 accounts have signed up for its money lock tool to date, and Citibank noted that over 500 customers used its version on their accounts in the first six months of 2025.
Song Seng Wun, economic advisor at CGS International Securities Singapore, noted that the S$30 billion sum locked away by bank customers may seem like a lot, but it is “relatively small compared with the total deposits in the banking system”.
Nonetheless, it is important that these funds are safe rather than lost to scammers, he said.
DBS, StanChart and Maybank observed that most users of the money lock tool fell between the ages of 30 and 64.
UOB observed a “fairly even take-up” of the feature across different age groups. However, it noted that Gen X and baby boomers, in particular, saw the importance of using the tool as “slightly higher balances (were) locked by customers aged 50 years and above”.
Similarly, DBS said users within the age range of 50 to 65 typically locked the largest amounts of funds.
“Banks will continue to encourage their customers to use this service to limit potential losses, should a customer’s digital banking access be compromised,” the police said.
Under the money lock feature, locked funds cannot be moved through digital means until a customer goes through a process to unlock them. This makes it harder for money to be siphoned out of a customer’s bank account in the event that a scammer gains digital access to it.
The process for unlocking funds typically entails identity verification and often requires customers to physically visit ATMs or bank branches – adding hurdles to scamming attempts.
For some banks, the process includes a cooling-off period where fund withdrawals remain blocked for a duration of several hours after the request to unlock them is approved.
In addition to banks’ money lock feature, Singapore’s anti-scamming efforts also include the passing of a new law that lets police freeze bank accounts of potential scam victims without their consent.
Under this law, which came into force on Jul 1, police can order banks to restrict money transfers from accounts of potential scam victims as a “last resort after other options to convince the individual have been exhausted”.
