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Implementing payment liability shift in real time payments
Fraudsters and scammers tend to use real-time payment for their operations since it is done immediately and irreversibly.
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“Crazy rich” Indra Kesuma, or Indra Kenz (center), arrives at the National Police Criminal Investigation Department in Jakarta on Feb. 24, 2022. The police have named him a suspect in an investment scam case. (Antara/Reno Esnir)
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ndonesia has achieved its extensive digitalization plan in real-time payments through the implementation of BI-FAST since its announcement in October 2021.
BI-FAST is part of Bank Indonesia's (BI) commitment to creating a financial system that is “integrated, interoperable and interconnected”, as stated in the 2025 Indonesia Payment System Blueprint. BI-FAST aims to connect digital banking, fintech, e-commerce and consumers in an end-to-end payment ecosystem through centralized, efficient real-time payments operated by the central bank.
BI-FAST as a real-time payment system allows instant transfers of funds, significantly reducing time in comparison with account-to-account transfers operated by Indonesia’s payment system infrastructure providers, with a system called Real-Time Online Transfer (RTOL).
However, the implementation of real-time payment with such a low cost and 24/7 operation also poses risks to consumers. Fraudsters and scammers tend to use real-time payment for their operations since it is done immediately and irreversibly, giving them time to deceive the victims and launder the funds through a maze of mule accounts.
One of the most common real-time payment scams is authorized push payment (APP) fraud, which has recently become a global trend. APP fraud is a type of payment fraud where the fraudster tricks and manipulates the victims to transfer a sum of money to a malicious or mule account with an authorized payment transaction using a real-time payment platform.
Some examples of the APP fraud method are a romance scam, a purchase scam, an investment scam or invoice fraud.
According to FICO Research published in March 2024, in 2023 real-time payment scams in Indonesia are on the rise. About 64 percent of respondents received unsolicited text messages, emails, phone calls or other contact media that they believed to be part of a scam, while 49 percent of respondents stated that their friends or family members had been victims of such scams.
