Major Taiwanese banks are suspending their advertising on Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook due to concerns over rampant financial scams on the site.

Mega Financial Holding Co, along with its subsidiaries and other local banks, is pulling its ads from the global social network, chairman Ray Dawn told reporters on Tuesday. His bank has already stopped advertising on Facebook after spending about NT$16 million on ads there annually, according to Dawn.

The surprise move follows growing pressure on social media leaders to do more to curtail online scams, which are on the rise, especially in economies with ageing populations. While the amounts in Taiwan are small, the concerted action taken by the archipelago’s lenders could encourage institutions elsewhere to apply real financial pressure on Meta and its peers.

“There have been endless scams on Facebook, with some fraudsters assuming the identities of banks. We hope Facebook can prioritise resolving this issue, so we will withdraw advertising on the platform with other banks in Taiwan,” Dawn said.

Ten local banks, including Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank Ltd, will join the campaign, he added. A SCSB spokesperson confirmed the joint action with Mega and said the bank had also pulled its advertisements from Facebook, although he declined to comment on SCSB’s spending on the platform.

A Meta representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior said in August that online investment scams are the top cause for the loss of assets among the Taiwanese public. In July, among all reported scam cases, 97.9% of the victims saw fraudulent ads first on Facebook and 2.1% on Alphabet Inc’s Google, according to the ministry. Taiwan also passed new regulations in 2023 requiring online platforms to remove fraudulent investment ads.

  - Bloomberg