Westpac has launched a new AI-powered call assistant designed to help frontline staff detect scams in real-time during customer calls.
The development of this AI tool is part of Westpac’s broader strategy to strengthen its scam prevention capabilities and offer immediate, more consistent support to customers at risk. As financial fraud continues to evolve in sophistication, the bank is placing greater emphasis on proactive solutions to intervene earlier and more effectively.
Westpac, established in 1817, provides a wide range of banking and financial services including personal, business, and institutional banking. The bank has increasingly focused on deploying advanced technology to combat financial crime and improve customer experiences across digital and physical channels.
The new product, a real-time AI assistant integrated into the bank’s customer service platforms, helps identify key scam indicators during phone calls. By analysing conversations live, the tool supports bankers by surfacing prompts, providing suggested questions, and generating alerts when potential scam-related language or behaviours are detected. This allows staff to respond faster and more decisively.
The AI assistant is currently being piloted by Westpac’s specialist fraud and scam teams and has already shown promising results. The technology also offers live transcription support and can detect if a scammer may be coaching the customer in the background—one of the more challenging fraud tactics to uncover.
This launch marks the first frontline AI initiative from Westpac’s ‘AI Accelerator’ programme. It reflects a growing internal push to scale AI-powered solutions across customer service and fraud prevention functions. Beyond scams, the bank is already considering how this tool could streamline other customer service operations.
Over the last two years, Westpac has invested over $100m in anti-scam initiatives, saving customers more than $500m. Innovations include SafeBlock, which lets customers instantly freeze accounts via the app; SafeCall, a secure, verified call system; SaferPay, a payment risk screening tool; and Westpac Verify, which flags mismatches in account names during transfers.
Additional initiatives such as Dynamic CVC (rotating card security codes), crypto and merchant payment blocks, inbound scam detection, and call spoofing prevention demonstrate Westpac’s layered and technology-driven approach to safeguarding customer funds.
Westpac CEO Anthony Miller said, “Our customer service specialists are often trying to solve complex puzzles with many missing pieces. In urgent circumstances, like when a customer thinks they’ve been scammed, these calls can be very emotive with lots of information that our operators need to synthesise very quickly. This AI tool is helping fill some of those gaps and is aiding our teams in real-time so they can more effectively respond.”
He added, “Early results from our pilot demonstrates the potential this technology has to unlock faster and more effective and consistent outcomes for customers in important moments.”
Elsewhere, ThetaRay, a leading provider of Cognitive AI-driven financial crime compliance solutions, and Spayce, a cross-border payments platform operating in over 200 countries, have formed a strategic partnership aimed at bolstering global payment security.
The partnership arrives as financial crime grows more complex, with illicit actors increasingly mirroring the scale and agility of multinational corporations. Legacy, rules-based anti-money laundering (AML) systems are proving insufficient to tackle these sophisticated threats. ThetaRay and Spayce have teamed up to address this critical gap with next-generation, AI-driven compliance tools.
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