Temporarily slowing down down 99 scammers is not worth stranding one normal person in a foreign country with no means to access their money and no means to recover their account.

The reality is that most lockdown-type protection schemes are just a roadbump, not a solution. They slow down the attacker. In fact, hackers are employing account lockouts to lock security teams and management out of their own accounts when they launch an attack.

I'm with OP on this one. The banks have completely failed to protect against fraud while causing massive economic damage with their clueless security design.