WASHINGTON—In conjunction with World Elder Abuse Awareness Day this month, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is reminding financial institutions to “remain vigilant” in identifying and reporting suspicious activity related to elder financial exploitation (EFE).
According to FinCEN, EFE-related losses affect personal savings, checking accounts, retirement savings, and investments, and can severely impact victims’ well-being and financial security as they age, FinCEN said.
FinCEN has previously published resources to help stakeholders combat EFE.
What Analysis Found
Earlier this year, FinCEN noted it issued an analysis focusing on patterns and trends identified in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data linked to EFE, which indicated roughly $27 billion in EFE-related suspicious activity. FinCEN said it examined BSA reports filed by financial institutions between June 15, 2022 and June 15, 2023 where filers either used the key term referenced in FinCEN’s June 2022 EFE Advisory or checked “Elder Financial Exploitation” as a suspicious activity type, which amounted to 155,415 filings from financial institutions.
In addition to filing a Suspicious Activity Report, FinCEN is recommending:
- Financial institutions refer consumers who may be victims of EFE to the Department of Justice’s National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-FRAUD-11 or 833-372-8311 for assistance with reporting suspected fraud to the appropriate government agencies.
- EFE victims can file incident reports to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the Federal Trade Commission.
FinCEN Resources on Elder Financial Exploitation
Other resources include:
- Financial Trend Analysis on Elder Financial Exploitation: Threat Pattern & Trend Information, June 2022 to June 2023 (April 2024)
- FinCEN Advisory on Elder Financial Exploitation [FIN-2022-A002] (June 2022)
How to Sign Up For the Best Daily News Email in Credit Unions? (It’s Free!)
Every workday CUToday.info delivers the most comprehensive, freshest daily newsletter with the day’s news headlines, including links to the related articles. The Fresh Today newsletter is the most timely, relevant and widely-read source of news and information in the CU community. And it’s free!
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties,
And did we mention it’s free?