Warning about fraudsters impersonating Hanfa employees

The authority reiterates that it neither provides investment advice, brokerage intermediation, nor asset-recovery or reimbursement services for victims of fraud. For compliance and financial crime teams, the practical significance lies in impersonation risk. Fraudsters trading on a regulator's name can pressure customers into transfers, weaken confidence in legitimate supervised firms, and generate complaints and mis-selling narratives that supervisors may later examine.

Firms operating in or marketing into Croatia should assume that cloned-brand approaches may reference Hanfa as a supposed overseer or guarantor of a product. Recommended actions: refresh front-line and contact-centre scripts so staff can explain that a regulator will never recommend investments, request payments, or promise refunds; strengthen onboarding and transaction monitoring rules for recovery-fee and 'regulator-approved' narratives; and issue short customer-facing warnings through app notifications, statements and websites. Verify identity claims independently before acting on any approach purporting to come from Hanfa, and route suspected impersonation to fraud and regulatory-relationship teams.

Marketing and social-media surveillance should also cover misuse of supervisor branding. The item carries no new prudential obligation, but it is a useful reminder that fraud prevention, outsourcing and operational resilience controls must extend to third-party impersonation and customer communications. Document any incidents and consider whether notification duties to the regulator or police are triggered.