AARP released a study this month on the impact of training financial professionals to prevent financial exploitation. AARP collaborated with CUNA to launch the BankSafe program in May, designed to empower financial institution employees with the ability to identify signs of exploitation of older Americans.

Specifically, BankSafe 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 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:

• The 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.