Lawmaker Johnny Ng on Monday called on the government to set up a mechanism to share the burden of fraud to better protect scamming victims.

Ng, who is also the convenor of the "Anti-Scam Alliance", said the establishment of a "Fraud Loss Responsibility Framework" would encourage financial institutions, telecommunication providers, and digital platforms to take a more proactive approach in combating fraud.

He said this would require these stakeholders to compensate the victim according to their degree of negligence in each case.

Last September, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched an industry consultation exercise on introducing a "responsibility framework" among commercial banks, in which banks would have to share losses with those who fall victim to scams that involve the customer losing money by providing their personal information.

Ng also suggested the establishment of an independent committee to handle disputes case by case, and determine how much percentage of losses each party should take up.

"Nowadays, we do not have any mechanism or organisations to help the victims to get back the money. I think this framework is to help them [victims] to recoup some money from some organisation or parties," he said.

He added that various loopholes were present even with increased protections towards citizens against scam, such as real-name registration when purchasing prepaid sim cards.

"Scammers can [now] easily advertise on social networks. [Many] citizens can see advertisements such as big discounts on air tickets, and they will click in and drop into a phishing or fraud website, and lose their money," Ng said.

"The banking system can also do more on suspected transactions. We see a lot of cases with [criminals] using overseas bank accounts and credit cards to debit the victim's cards in foreign exchange," he added.

The lawmaker also questioned why scamming syndicates can acquire a huge number of sim cards to contact potential victims.

Ng said the government could look at other countries and regions, such as Singapore, which adopted a shared-responsibilities framework since the end of last year to combat phishing crimes, while Australia is considering the inclusion of social media firms in the sharing of fraud losses.