[Provided by Hana Bank]
[Provided by Hana Bank]

Hana Bank said Monday it had blocked 1,450 cases of a new type of investment fraud through its in-house Fraud Detection System (FDS).

The scheme, known as "KReSIM," involved an eSIM vendor that lured investors by promising high returns and multilevel marketing commissions tied to a purported business selling eSIMs to foreign tourists. The operator later halted profit payouts and disappeared, leaving an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 victims nationwide and losses running into the hundreds of billions of won.

The fraud is particularly difficult for financial institutions to detect in advance because it combines a Ponzi structure — using new investors' funds to pay existing ones — with pyramid-style recruitment. Victims typically realize they have been defrauded only after a significant delay.

In response, Hana Bank moved in February to build an immediate countermeasure, developing a dedicated monitoring scenario within its advanced FDS that incorporates KReSIM fraud patterns.

The FDS-based defenses blocked a total of 1,450 transactions worth about 18.5 billion won ($13 million), the bank said.

Under the KReSIM-specific prevention scenario, any transaction signal detected on a KReSIM corporate account triggers an instant rejection and blocks further fund outflows, including through the installation of mobile banking apps.

Financial regulators have been enforcing a transaction-suspension processing guideline that requires financial institutions to freeze accounts immediately not only in voice-phishing cases but also in response to other emerging phishing schemes.

"We will continue to develop FDS specialists and upgrade the system so that we can fulfill our social responsibility as a financial institution that offers the highest level of protection against financial fraud," a Hana Bank financial consumer protection official said.


hyuk@heraldcorp.com