Set bank limits and alerts so any unusual transfer is small, slow and noticed.
Nadia, 29 (an invented example), has a daily transfer limit of S$50,000 on her main account. She set it when she paid her wedding banquet deposit and never lowered it again.
Many people have never looked at their daily transfer limit. Some find it set to tens of thousands of dollars for the same reason as Nadia: they agreed to it years ago for a one-off payment. This matters because a scammer who gets into your account can move money up to the same limit you have. Lesson 7.2, "Money Lock: savings that cannot be moved online", protected most of your savings by making them impossible to move online. The money that stays free to move needs three settings of its own: a lower daily transfer limit, an alert on every payment, and knowing where your emergency freeze is. A fourth step, keeping your contact details current, makes sure the alerts reach you.
Your daily transfer limit is the most that can be sent out of your account through digital banking in one day. Banks let you set it yourself. It usually covers transfers to other people and accounts, including PayNow. You'll find it in the security or transfer settings of your banking app.
Set the limit to what you actually need. On a normal day most people make a few small transfers, such as splitting a dinner bill, paying a friend back or sending the monthly rent. To find your number, look through the last few months of transfers, find the largest one that happens regularly, and set the limit a little above it.
Nadia's regular transfers are her rent of S$1,200 a month and a few small PayNow payments. She lowers her limit to S$2,000. If a scammer got into her app, the most they could move in a day would now be S$2,000. With alerts set up as described in the next section, she would know about it within seconds.
Sometimes you'll need to send more, for example a deposit on a flat or a renovation payment. Raise the limit for that day, make the payment, then lower it again. This costs you about a minute of extra effort a few times a year.
A low limit also gives you time. Under a low limit, a scam that could empty an account in one night would need several days, and each of those days is a chance for you or the bank to notice.
Banks send a notification when money leaves your account above a set amount. That amount is your alert threshold, and you can choose it. Go to your bank's alert settings, check the current minimum, and set the threshold to the lowest amount it allows. The aim is to hear about every payment, including the small ones.
Small payments matter because scammers sometimes send a small test transfer first to check that the account works. If your alerts only fire above a few hundred dollars, that test goes through without any alert. With alerts on every transaction, the first unfamiliar payment shows up on your phone and you can act before the second one.
You will get more notifications. Most will be your own spending and take a second to check. Reading each one also helps you catch card fraud, subscription charges you'd forgotten about, and mistakes.
Singapore banks let you freeze your own accounts in an emergency. This is often called the kill switch. Using it blocks your cards and stops digital banking transactions, so no more money can leave. It's meant for the moment you realise something is wrong, such as an alert for a payment you didn't make or a call you suddenly recognise as a scam.
The kill switch is usually in two places. One is inside the banking app, often under a security or help section. The other is the bank's hotline, where you ask for an emergency freeze. Some banks also offer it through internet banking, so check whether yours does.
Find it now, before you need it. Open the app, locate the freeze and open the menu once so you know the route. In a real emergency your hands may be shaking and your phone may be compromised. If you've opened the menu before, you'll find it again in seconds. Save the hotline number as well. If you think your phone itself might be under a scammer's control, call the hotline from a different phone.
Turning your accounts back on after a freeze usually takes more than a tap. Look up your bank's steps on its website now so they don't surprise you later. Lesson 8.1, "The first fifteen minutes: call the bank and freeze", covers what to say to the bank once the freeze is on.
Alerts only help if they reach you. Banks send them to the mobile number and email address on your account, and people change their phone number and email more often than they update their bank. Some people still have alerts going to an email they last opened years ago. Check which number and email your bank has for you. Update them if either has changed or if you no longer check that inbox.
Then check your phone's notification settings for the banking app. If you switched them off to cut down on noise, an alert can arrive and go unseen until morning, so turn them back on.
The limit, the alerts and the freeze are three settings, a few minutes each. In the activity, you'll put each one in place for your own accounts.
Lower your daily transfer limit, set alerts to the lowest threshold, and find the emergency freeze in your bank's app.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).