Introduction
Scams are on the rise across ASEAN, and they are increasingly targeting people's everyday channels. This report, produced with the GSMA, draws on a survey of more than three thousand consumers across six markets, and sets the 2025 results against the previous wave to show what has moved and in which direction.
The headline finding is straightforward. The equal-weighted share of consumers who report having ever been scammed increased from 31 per cent to 45 per cent in a single wave. That is not a drift. It is a step change in exposure.
Where scams actually land
Involvement is overwhelmingly mobile and multi-channel. Victims most often cite OTT messaging, voice calls and social platforms, while SMS and email remain present throughout.
The mix differs by country in ways that matter for anyone designing a response. Social and SMS are more prominent in the Philippines, while voice and OTT are more prevalent in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. Countermeasures have to be tailored to where scams actually originate rather than applied uniformly across a region.
The harm is real, and people are reporting it
In 2025, 68 per cent of victims reported losing money, with 11 per cent stating they had lost a large sum. Approximately 76 per cent reported the incident to the authorities.
Reporting is split across banks and fintechs, police, and platforms. The consequence is structural: no single institution sees the whole case. That fragmentation slows recovery and weakens deterrence, because the picture that would allow a pattern to be identified never assembles in one place.
Privacy expectations are near universal
Privacy concerns remain close to universal at approximately 97 per cent, and demands for broad disclosure have increased. The share saying it is important that companies disclose what they share moved from 95 per cent to 98 per cent.
The signal from consumers is consistent. Keep data use tight, transparent, and tied to specific outcomes.
Acceptance of protective network signals is strong
Seventy-two per cent are comfortable with limited, purpose-bound checks, and support rises further when sharing is exception-based rather than continuous. This creates a practical path for GSMA Open Gateway style APIs, covering SIM swap, number verification, device status and coarse location confidence, to harden logins and payments while minimising the data actually used.
The contrast with general data sharing is instructive. Comfort with conversational-app data sharing has dropped from 53 per cent to 40 per cent, mirroring concerns about impersonation and phishing on those platforms. Consumers are not uniformly privacy-averse. They distinguish sharply between purposeful, bounded checks and open-ended access.
Consumers will reward better protection
Eighty-one per cent say they would switch financial providers for stronger security. They favour products that bring verification to the front, confirmation of payee, safer payment instruments, and simple official call-back only habits.
Security is not only a cost centre. It moves market share.
The way forward
Prioritise the hot routes, taking voice and OTT first and strengthening social and SMS where elevated. Make safe behaviours the default rather than the informed choice. Use targeted, transparent, authorised data sharing to verify transactions. Close the reporting loop so that every report turns into fast, visible remediation.