The Reserve Bank is warning of what appears to be a scam email sent to businesses in the financial sector.

Reserve Bank spokesperson Naomi Mitchell says the scam email, purportedly from a Reserve Bank staff member, encourages recipients to click on a link to view 'New Transaction Guidelines”.

She says the email was not sent by the Reserve Bank, and clicking on the link could potentially expose the recipient's computer to a virus.

'People need to be vigilant. Unfortunately there scammers out there that do try and get either personal details or banking details, or they get people to click on links which is just going to download something nasty to their computers. So they need to be aware.”

Naomi says the Reserve Bank would not ask customers to supply personal details via email.

'If people want to get in contact with us directly to verify any emails that we do send, we're more than happy [for them] to do that.”

She says there have been situations in the past where scammers have traded on the Reserve Banks name.

'They have asked people to make payments or saying that the Reserve Bank will be releasing payments and the Reserve Bank is not involved in claiming payments directly with people.

'If people are suspicious, we just encourage them to be very cautious and there is some great information on the scam watch website.”

Naomi says did not have precise numbers of how many people the scam has been sent to or how wide the problem is but they had received calls about the scam.

For more information on scams and how to protect you from scammers click here.