Taipei: Taiwan recorded about 25 million scam calls and text messages last year, a 36.97 percent drop from a year earlier and the steepest decline among Asian countries, according to a Taiwanese tech company on Tuesday.

According to Focus Taiwan, Gogolook Co., which created the caller identification app Whoscall, revealed in its annual fraud report that this significant decline highlights the effectiveness of the Taiwanese government's anti-fraud policies and its collaboration with businesses.

Loan scams emerged as the most prevalent category of fraudulent text messages in Taiwan last year, constituting nearly 80 percent of such scams, as detailed in Gogolook's report. Fraudsters employed false claims to entice individuals to click on links or return calls, specifically targeting those in urgent financial need.

Scams impersonating financial institutions accounted for nearly 10 percent of fraudulent text messages, with fraudsters posing as banks to announce system upgrades, flag abnormal accounts, or report restricted card functions. These messages urged users to verify their information by clicking on links, Gogolook reported.

The company noted that the professional formatting and formal language of these messages make them easily mistaken for legitimate communications, leading to a gradual rise in this category of text scams in recent years.

Payment scams are also increasingly prevalent, with fraud rings mimicking utilities like power, water, or telecom providers. They send notices of unpaid bills with warnings of imminent service suspension, pressuring recipients into quickly clicking links or making payments.

The report highlighted that these scams often involve small amounts and scenarios resembling routine household bills, causing many individuals to comply without verifying the source.

Regarding nuisance calls, financial lending topped the list with 14.59 million calls identified by Taiwan residents. Most of these calls originated from non-bank systems such as private financing, car loans, and high-interest loans.

This type of nuisance call occurred 3.5 times more frequently than those from regular banks, suggesting that marketing by non-statutory financial institutions significantly surpassed legitimate bank lending, according to the report. Product marketing, which included tea sales and real estate brokerage, ranked second among nuisance calls with 10.35 million calls.