The announcement
On 4 March 2026, the Singapore Police Force announced that its Anti-Scam Centre, in partnership with DBS, UOB, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and GXS, used Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to identify and disrupt over 300 ongoing scam cases, averting more than S$24 million in potential losses. The collaboration reflects a growing pattern of real-time, automated data-sharing between banks and law enforcement specifically targeting scam transactions as they're happening, rather than investigating after the fact.
This is a genuine operational win against scam activity — and it sits alongside the broader regulatory push (MAS's Shared Responsibility Framework, the SMS OTP phase-out) toward more real-time verification across Singapore's banking sector.
The side effect: more friction for legitimate customers
A predictable consequence of tighter, faster automated scam detection is that legitimate customer activity occasionally gets caught in the same net — banks calibrate these systems to flag anomalies, and an anomaly-detection system erring toward caution will inevitably create some false positives. If you call your bank to request account changes, including a fee waiver, and something about the pattern looks unusual (a new device, a recent digital token activation, an unfamiliar calling number), don't be surprised if the agent runs more verification steps than a purely routine call would have required a year or two ago.
This isn't a sign anything is wrong with your account — it's the visible cost of a system working as intended against scam activity, and it's a reasonable tradeoff given the amounts involved.
What this means for calling in about a fee waiver
Nothing about the underlying retention pathway or approval logic for annual fee waivers changes because of this announcement. What's worth expecting is a marginally higher bar for identity verification on inbound calls generally, across the five banks named and likely others following similar patterns. Calling from your registered mobile number, having your digital token active, and being ready to answer standard security questions all reduce the chance of unnecessary friction.
Why RPA specifically matters here
Robotic Process Automation, in this context, means the bank's and police's systems are automatically cross-referencing transaction patterns and account activity in real time, rather than relying purely on manual case review. This is what allows action against 300+ cases simultaneously rather than the handful a manual team could realistically triage. The same automation infrastructure that catches scam patterns fast is, by extension, more sensitive to any unusual account activity — legitimate or not.
The clawbacks.ai approach
Our calls are placed using your registered account details as a legitimate, verifiable customer request — the kind of activity these systems are designed to let through smoothly, not flag. If a bank's verification requirements tighten further, our agent adapts to whatever additional steps are required.