Former ATO Deputy Commissioner Joins New Advisory Board to Tackle Government Payment Fraud

Former Australian Taxation Office deputy commissioner John Ford has joined a new public-private advisory board set up by fraud prevention company BioCatch. The board aims to help governments identify and prevent fraud involving tax, welfare and pension payments. Other founding members include former IRS Criminal Investigation chief Guy Ficco and Dr Shlomit Wagman, a former director-general of Israel's Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority.

The board's stated approach is to work with governments and law enforcement so that banks using BioCatch can alert agencies when an account looks high risk, before a payment is deposited. The figures cited in the release show the scale of the problem. Commonwealth entities quantified $110.7 million in external fraud losses in 2024-25, and external fraud allegations rose 27% to 348,072. The Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre has said the true figure is likely higher, and the OECD has cited an estimate of $5 billion to $25 billion a year. The release also says the ATO's response to GST refund fraud, which cost at least $2 billion, involved more than 57,000 detected perpetrators.

BioCatch says it already runs an account intelligence network among Australian banks. Its BioCatch Trust network launched in 2024 with ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Suncorp and Westpac, and Macquarie has since joined. The announcement comes as banks prepare for Scams Prevention Framework obligations starting on 31 March 2027.