Industry and Technology Committee on June 8th, 2026

[David Pegley]

Thank you.

Perhaps I should briefly describe what the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange does, which is mainly to support the work that the ABA and other industry bodies are doing. We provide intelligence sharing across multiple industries. At the moment, we have something like eight different industries that we share intelligence across. We have around 100 different members with which we share intelligence in Australia. We also support, separately, the sharing of intelligence among New Zealand banks for the same purpose.

Those industries range from digital media, telcos and insurance companies to obviously banking, telecommunications companies and digital currency exchanges for the purposes of all three parts of, as Nick described, the SPF regime. In the prevention framework, we'll take information from a victim and share that with the relevant digital platform exchange, or we'll share it with the telecommunications company. This has been a very successful way of rapidly taking down in real time the bad attributes that float around the community. We'll also share intelligence that enables the detection of transactions in bad bank accounts or digital currency regimes that have been used to exfiltrate funds, therefore harming the economic benefit to the criminals.

We also support tracking—and hopefully stopping—the funds among institutions in real time to enable, as best we can, the recovery of funds for victims on their behalf across the banking sector. That's a fraud reporting exchange that enables everything from digital currency exchanges before currency is transferred from fiat to digital...and in the banking sector to try to stop the funds from flowing, because they will move very quickly offshore from Australia.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Pegley, at the bottom of your screen, there should be an opportunity to switch to the English channel. That should solve our translation problem. If it doesn't, that's okay. I'll translate for you.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, the floor is yours.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Pegley, can you let me know if you have access to the interpretation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I don't think he does, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

You can still ask your question, though. If I don't interpret it exactly right, you can correct me.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Great.

When the new model was put in place, what challenges did you encounter? What feedback did you get from companies?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Pegley, did you hear that?

[David Pegley]

Yes, I did. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good. Please go ahead.

[David Pegley]

Probably the most interesting aspect of the model of the three sectors is identifying relevant attributes to be shared between those sectors. What is useful for a bank to use to detect fraudulent transactions is not the same as it is for a telco. A digital currency exchange has a very different way of tracking transactions. Digital media platforms are not used to tracking transactions in that way at all. We've worked very hard to identify the relevant attributes to be shared and the intelligence to be shared among the platforms.

An interesting aspect is that in many cases, these industries don't necessarily work together very often on common issues. Digital platforms are invariably very strong competitors. Telcos are pretty much the same. The idea that they would collaborate together is a foreign concept.

A lot of the work we're doing is in trying to build trust between parties when we're sharing intelligence and to identify the bad actors, if you like, as the rationale. The banking environment is much more familiar with collaboration around this activity. It has been for years, so that part of the picture has been much easier. The translation, if you like, among the different sectors of different intelligence that will help them stop the scams has been an effort, but we are getting there.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much.

Since we're running behind, I'm going to cut the last round a few minutes short.

Mr. Falk, you'll have two and a half minutes, followed by Mr. Ma, who will have two and a half minutes. Then we are going right into a brief suspension, followed by time in camera to get to the report that we still have to get through today.

Mr. Falk, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes, sir.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony here this afternoon, or morning—whatever it is where you are.

What have you found to be the most effective part of the legislation to combat scamming?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

I would say the most effective component of the legislation is the fact that it frames the responsibilities of each sector as equivalent but different. What I mean by this is that it acknowledges that each sector, because of the technological way they operate, the business model, etc., inevitably has different capabilities and different responsibilities. Some of that goes to the data issues that David was talking about.

The overarching idea that there is a responsibility to work to prevent, detect and respond to scams—those three labels—becomes really important. Working in the banks, I can look at the obligations of the telcos and the platforms and can ask what they are doing to prevent scams and what we are doing. Is it roughly the same? Are we trying to do the same sorts of things? What are we doing to detect scams? Particularly in the data-sharing space, that's very important. Is the data we're providing helpful, and what is the response?

It's about having an overarching framework that cuts across regulatory silos, because historically, each of those sectors has been regulated in its own silo. The sector has its own regulator, and they don't always work together outside of those vertical boundaries. Forcing discussion not only at the industry level but also at the regulator level—across the silos—is probably the foundational thing that is of greatest benefit in the scam prevention framework.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Have you found that the social media platforms have also been co-operative?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

They are working with us on a number of the initiatives in the framework. It's fair to say that they had a longer journey to take and perhaps have a little further to go, but at the moment, the impetus of the legal obligation is encouraging collaboration, and we are working with them on a number of fronts to make that collaboration real.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Mr. Falk.

Mr. Ma, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes, sir.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming on short notice.

Obviously, I applaud the Australian model, and we've seen some successes. Despite these successes, there are still vulnerabilities that exist in addressing financial fraud within the Australian banking system. For example, according to the Consumers' Federation of Australia, scam losses for first nations people increased by more than 70% to $6.5 million. This raises a bit of a good faith concern about equity.

If we were to apply Australia's model to the Canadian context, why does this disparity exist?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

I think I made the observation earlier that there is a scam for everybody in society, and the scammers are brilliant at targeting the attributes and vulnerabilities of every community.

As a different example, many of the people who came to Australia from Vietnam or China will be victims of scams where people pretend to be from the legal authorities of those countries. For first nations people, there's a particular challenge around what we call “scambling”, which is a type of scam that looks like an online game. They become quite popular among the communities. The main intervention there, which banks take very seriously, is community education to explain that what looks like a way to entertain yourself and perhaps earn a little money is in fact a scam.

One of the challenges is that the boundary between legal and illegal gambling is not always clear, so working with regulators to make that more precise is also important. I think your broader point is that everyone in society is susceptible to some type of scam, and education is one of the key tools to assist with that to make sure that people are aware of how they are being targeted by scammers.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

How can Canada build on Australia's success while ensuring that no community is left behind?

[Nicholas Giurietto]

I think broader success comes from an ecosystem type of approach of sharing responsibility among all of those players. I know a lot of the focus at the moment is on banks, telcos and digital platforms, but there are other sectors that play a critical role. They also need to be included to make sure that no one is left behind.

The best way to do this is to be smart about the use of data. We are working to improve the quality of the data that tells us who has been scammed, what type of scam it is, what the demographics are, etc. If we can use that data well, we can understand much better the specific nature of the scam, the target and how it's implemented. That allows preventative measures, education measures or whatever else to be focused.

A general “be careful of scammers” type of message works for only a few months—if it works at all—and then it becomes background noise. You need a targeted message around specific scams, based on data.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I think my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Ma.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for appearing here today. I know it felt a bit short, but we actually had a much smaller panel than we typically would, which means we probably got more questions in than we otherwise would have, which is great.

I would encourage you, as best as you possibly can, to keep tabs on the next few meetings this committee is undertaking in relation to the topic at hand. If there are things you're seeing that you think would be a mistake for the Government of Canada to do or things that you would applaud in terms of next directions based on the experiences you've had in Australia, we would certainly welcome that feedback, as you're not only an ally, but clearly leaders in this field in your respective jurisdictions.

Gentlemen, thank you. We wish you a very nice rest of your day in Australia.

Colleagues, we are going to suspend briefly.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, we're going to send you a new link.

We are going to take a five-minute break as we turn over, and then we'll get back to work.

We are suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]