Money Lock Feature: Keeping Your Money Out Of Scammers’ Reach

Your bank may offer a “Money Locking” feature which stops scammers from digitally transferring your money out of your bank account. To access money that has been locked up, you need to visit a bank branch to verify your identity or do it through an ATM.

Practising cyber hygiene is vital to avoid getting scammed. To guard against scammers, consider “locking up” a portion of the money in your bank accounts.

The “locked-up” amount cannot be transferred out digitally by anyone, acting as a last line of defence against scammers who try to gain access to your accounts, such as through malware attacks. If you want access to the “locked-up” amount, you may need to visit a bank branch or ATM.

There may be processing time for unlocking these funds. You should therefore think carefully about how much you should lock. Take stock of your recurring expenses and near-term needs before making your decision.

How It Works

Let’s say you have $5,000 in your bank account but only need $1,000 for your day-to-day or regular expenses. You may “lock up” $4,000, leaving $1,000 that you can use for services such as PayNow, transfers like GIRO payments, NETS transactions or ATM withdrawals.

Should scammers gain access to your account, the most they can access is the $1,000. They will not be able to spend or transfer out the $4,000 that has been “locked-up”.

How To Set It Up

Find instructions for setting up the "Money Locking" feature for:

Safeguarding Your CPF Savings

If you are a CPF member aged 55 or older and have no immediate plans to withdraw your CPF savings, you are encouraged to safeguard your CPF savings by activating the CPF Withdrawal Lock to disable online CPF withdrawals. You can do so via the CPF account settings after logging on to the CPF website using your Singpass.

When you need to withdraw your CPF, you can enable online withdrawals again via the CPF account settings. For your security, this will be subject to enhanced authentication measures and a 12-hour cooling period. Members who do not wish to enable online withdrawals again can withdraw in-person at CPF Service Centres.

To safeguard members’ basic retirement adequacy, amounts up to the Basic Retirement Sum are automatically reserved for retirement and cannot be withdrawn. CPF Board has also introduced a default Daily Withdrawal Limit of $2,000 for all members aged 55 or older, as part of a suite of anti-scam measures. Members can adjust this limit via the CPF account settings. All limit increases are subject to enhanced authentication measures and a 12-hour cooling period.

Keep Safe Against Scams

Avoiding scams starts with adopting good cyber hygiene habits. Follow these rules:

Secure Your Devices

Update your devices with the latest security patches
Install anti-virus software
Only download applications from the official app store

Secure Your Passwords

Never reveal login credentials, passwords or OTPs to anyone
Be cautious of clicking on links; banks will not include clickable links in SMSes or e-mail