The Philippine National Police and GCash, the Philippines’ leading financial app, strengthened their partnership in running after fraudsters and scammers.
GCash executives led by chief legal officer Maricor Alvarez-Adriano, legal department head Gilbert Escoto, fraud and IT risk and security head Miguel Geronilla, vice president for public affairs and corporate communications Gilda Maquilan and enterprise risk management head Bea de Ocampo attended a forum led by PNP-Anti Cybercrime Group director Brig. Gen. Sidney Hernia to signify the cooperation with the national police force to fight cybercriminals in the country.
The discussion included a presentation of the PNP of cases involving cybercrime and how they are constantly working together to enforce the law among these offenders.
The GCash team also had a meeting with the PNP-ACG Director of Operation PCol. Villamor Tuliao to discuss how GCash can collaborate further with the PNP on investigation requirements to combat perpetrators.
GCash presented its joint public service roadmap with the PNP to reinforce education for all stakeholders.
Aside from strengthening its partnership with the authorities, GCash has also been introducing game-changing security features while doubling down on its education drive to its customers.
Geronilla did a live demo about the DoubleSafe security feature of the app recently launched to the public in March. With DoubleSafe, even if a user inadvertently shares their MPIN and OTP to fraudsters, their account cannot be accessed from another device without scanning the owner’s face – ultimately preventing account takeovers.
“GCash is not only committed to reinforce our security measures in our app but also make sure that cybercriminals are punished according to the law while constantly reminding the public on how to safeguard their accounts,” said Adriano.
“Together with authorities, other relevant government agencies and our users, we can ensure that GSafeTayo,” she said.
Along with the launch of Doublesafe, GCash is also intensifying its GSafeTayo campaign through a series of awareness and education materials that will help customers identify and avoid fake sellers, suspicious links, as well as other common forms of scams.
GCash has been in close coordination with the PNP-ACG to help protect its more than 79 million users from criminals, scammers, and fraudsters.
The collaboration has led to the apprehension of suspected scammers and the blocking of suspicious accounts. The parties agreed to come up with a public service awareness campaign to appeal to the public, improve operations support and efficiency and share best practices to further combat cybercrimes.
GCash and the PNP reminded the public not to open unfamiliar links as it is a common practice for scammers to gather personal user information. GCash has stopped sending links and SMS, emails to counter this.
It asked consumers to never share personal information as GCash will never ask for your OTPS or MPINs and will only reach out through official channels.
Gcash and PNP enjoined everyone to double check before buying and check reviews for authenticity of goods before initiating financial transactions online to avoid being scammed.
