Philippine Payment App Maya Joins Government Push to Freeze Scam Accounts

Maya, a Philippine digital finance platform, has joined a Department of Justice working group set up to trace money taken in scams and freeze accounts tied to fraud. The group is called the Technical Working Group on Financial Cybercrime Concerns.

What the group does

Members include the DOJ Office of Cybercrime, the central bank (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, or BSP), the Department of Trade and Industry, the National Telecommunications Commission, phone companies and financial institutions. Its job is to set up channels to trace fraudulent funds, coordinate checks between institutions and freeze accounts linked to illegal activity.

The work supports the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act, Republic Act No. 12010. The law lets the BSP and partner financial firms halt suspicious digital transactions, fight money-mule networks (people or accounts used to pass along stolen money) and speed up cybercrime investigations.

Kristoffer Rada, Maya's head of corporate affairs, spoke at the DOJ's CyberReady Campus Tour at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He said, "Laws and plans work when we can put them into practice." Maya also works with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center through its Scam Safe initiative.

What Maya users can do

Maya's account tools let customers review active login sessions, adjust transfer limits and freeze linked payment cards if they spot unusual activity. The company advises checking a merchant's credentials before authorizing a payment. It also says financial institutions do not ask for one-time PINs or passwords.

The article does not say when the group began work, how quickly accounts could be frozen, or how many accounts are involved.