Vermont was among a handful of states where financial institutions were invited to pilot AARP's BankSafe training program for frontline staff. The program aims to give bank and credit union employees the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to: better understand as well as empathize and interact with older consumers in an exploitation situation; recognize their responsibility to identify signs of financial exploitation; and take the right steps to protect assets. The program empowers financial institution employees with the ability to identify signs of exploitation of older Americans.
AARP collaborated with CUNA to officially launch the BankSafe program nationwide in May of 2019.
AARP just released a study conducted on the impact of training financial professionals to prevent financial exploitation. The study was conducted by the AARP Public Policy Institute in conjunction with the Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology and examined 1,816 individuals who have completed the entire BankSafe training. It showed:
- BankSafe training saved consumers and financial institutions almost $1 million in preventing financial exploitation before the money leaves the account;
- Participants saved 16 times more than those in the control group who did not take the BankSafe training;
- The intervention group saved an average of $865 per trained participant versus $70 per participant in the control group;
- The intervention group reported suspected cases of exploitation at a rate four times higher than the control group;
- Increase in staff confidence was four times greater for the intervention group compared with the control group; and
- The intervention group had a 133% increase in knowledge scores.
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