NEWS: The NCUA, along with other federal banking regulators and state regulators, today issued a statement to help credit unions and other financial institutions fight elder financial exploitation.
“Older adults who experience financial exploitation can lose their life savings and financial security and face other harm,” the agencies said. “A FinCEN financial trend analysis of Bank Secrecy Act reports over a one-year period ending in June 2023 found that about $27 billion in reported suspicious activity was linked to elder financial exploitation. Banks, credit unions, and other supervised institutions play an important role in combatting elder financial exploitation and supporting their customers who experience these crimes.”
The statement gives examples of risk management and other practices that your credit union can use to help identify, prevent, and respond to elder financial exploitation, including:
- Developing effective governance and oversight, including policies and practices to protect account holders and the institution;
- Training employees on recognizing and responding to elder financial exploitation;
- Using transaction holds and disbursement delays, as appropriate, and consistent with applicable law;
- Establishing a trusted contact designation process for account holders;
- Filing Suspicious Activity Reports with FinCEN in a timely manner;
- Reporting suspected elder financial exploitation to law enforcement, Adult Protective Services, and other appropriate entities;
- Providing financial records to appropriate authorities where consistent with applicable law;
- Engaging with elder fraud prevention and response networks; and
- Increasing awareness through consumer outreach.
Please see the interagency statement for full details.
In addition, please refer to The League’s ii Release No. 0174 – “Reporting Financial Abuse.” It describes Wisconsin’s system for reporting suspected abuse and financial exploitation of the elderly or other at-risk adults. The Release also summarizes a relatively new Wisconsin law that lets a credit union reach out to relatives and certain other parties (including contacts that a member may authorize in advance) for help when it suspects financial exploitation of someone 65 or older or an at-risk adult.