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ComplianceJanuary 21, 2021

Episode 16: Elder financial exploitation: What you need to know

Banking Compliance Insights is a podcast series created to deliver insights on compliance trends and provide strategies for navigating today's regulatory and risk environments.


No one wants to see elderly adults suffer financial losses because of a trusted caregiver or third party's financial abuse and exploitation.
Not only is this a customer satisfaction and retention concern, but financial institutions also want to comply with all laws and regulations that protect their customers.

What can be done to stop this alarming trend?

In our next podcast episode, “Elder Financial Exploitation: What You Need to Know,” you’ll hear the latest on federal and state-level regulatory guidance, learn best practices to help you identify financial abuse, and find out what steps your financial institution can take to help slow the growth of elder financial exploitation.

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • What is elder financial exploitation? How do financial institutions stay on top of it? What is required of financial institutions?
  • What are some examples of elder financial exploitation? • How are financial institutions impacted when elder financial exploitation occurs?
  • What federal and state laws and regulations must financial institutions comply with?
  • What do financial institutions need to be aware of when it comes to reporting elder financial exploitation?
There is one recent study that estimates that the financial losses for elder financial exploitation direct victims exceed $3 billion. That's billion with a "B" every year.
Leslie McNally, Consultant for Wolters Kluwer’s Banking Compliance Solutions

Transcript: 

Greg Corombos, News Director at Radio America  00:00
Hi, I'm Greg Corombos. Welcome to Banking Compliance Insights, a podcast series from Wolters Kluwer. This series was created to deliver insights on compliance trends and strategies for navigating today's regulatory and risk environments. Today's episode, "Elder Financial Exploitation: What You Need to know," will focus on identifying the financial exploitation of older adults and the steps banks can, and in some cases are required to take, when they believe this exploitation is, has, or is likely to occur. Here to lead our discussion on this subject is Wolters Kluwer Vice President of Banking Compliance Solutions, Samir Agarwal. He is joined today by Leslie McNally, a Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence. Samir, let me pass the conversation over to you.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  00:53
Thank you, Greg. It seems like every day we're hearing about scams where older adults are the targets and taking their money is the intent. I certainly don't want this to happen to anyone that we personally know. And customers put a great deal of trust in the bank to protect their financial assets. Not only is this going to affect customer happiness and retention, but it also affects how banks comply with laws and regulations as they relate in their specific states. They need to protect their customers. Today, Leslie McNally is joining us. She's been tracking this topic and the laws relating to elder financial exploitation, or EFE, very closely. Welcome, Leslie. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do.
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  01:38
Samir, first, thank you so much for inviting me to talk about this topic. I just feel that there's a lot of information that the more everyone is aware of and has the ability to share with others, the better off we all will be. My position with Wolters Kluwer is that I am a consultant under the Regulatory Compliance Analysis group. My focus is on monitoring and tracking state legislation, as well as federal laws and agency postings. Banking and deposits is the primary focus of the activities that I'm looking at. However, sometimes you'll see some overlap with other areas and lines of business that we address. But it will often bring me back full circle to looking again at state and federal laws, legislation and regulations.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  02:28
Can you tell us a little more about elder financial exploitation. What is it exactly?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  02:33
Elder Financial Exploitation, or EFE, as it's commonly known, doesn't have a set description. However, a description that has been used, as identified in the United States Code, is typically used. There, they set forth financial exploitation as the fraudulent or otherwise illegal, unauthorized, or improper act, or process of an individual, including a caregiver or fiduciary, that uses the resources of an older individual for monetary or personal benefit, profit or gain, or that otherwise results in depriving that older individual of rightful access to or use of benefits, resources, belongings or assets. That gets to be rather a mouthful. But I would say the important thing here is we are looking at financial assets and the exploitation of older adults. Again, we're running into a description of what is an older adult?
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  03:39
That sure is a lot. Can you give us a quick example of something that most of our listeners will be familiar with in terms of an exploitation of an elder?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  03:47
Just a very short list of some common examples of EFE would be an individual who's in a caretaking, or other type of position, where they have the confidence of that older American, and that they exercise self-dealing. It could be the theft of their property, the theft of their money, or check fraud. It could be that they're taking that individual’s credit cards or debit cards and conducting illicit transactions.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  04:17
How come they would not be caught automatically when this happens?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  04:21
There's probably a multitude of levels to respond to that. First of all, you could be looking at individuals who are of an older generation. They're less likely to be aggressive in responding when they think they're faced with the situation, or they find out at the end of the transaction that they've suffered a loss. So, they may not report this information at all. It also could be that these individuals know what's going on, but they may be fearful. The individual who is perpetrating this crime may be a person whom the individual has to be dependent upon to maintain their independence. Again, I'm talking about caregivers. It also could be that they're suffering some physical disabilities or health issues that have declined their ability to respond or be aware of what's going on. You have those levels of activities as to why there might not be a report. Sometimes you just have situations where the individual is not aware that they've been scammed or had this crime committed against them.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  05:34
It's really unfortunate. What classifies or defines an older adult?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  05:41
A common definition of an older adult, and this varies amongst jurisdictions, would be a person 65 years of age or older. There are some states where they start at age 60. There are some states where they'll talk about individuals that might be older, so to speak, but yet might have some type of disability or inability to be fully representative for themselves.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  06:09
You said a couple of attributes of individuals as they grow into an older age. Why are they so attractive as targets? I guess wishful thinking is that they're a protected class of individuals.
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  06:24
I believe, and reports have shown, that many older adults are targets because they are individuals who have significant assets. They've worked hard their entire lives. They've hopefully saved up, or they perhaps have built up equity for their home. They also might be recipients of recurring sources of income, such as Social Security, pensions, and other retirement assets. They are seen as certain groupings of people who have the assets and have the money that the perpetrators would love to get their hands on.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  07:03
Leslie, let's talk about the folks who actually take advantage of older adults. Are there different ways that people, maybe even sometimes unsuspectingly, become a perpetrator?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  07:15
I would say it's very true that there are some folks that are considered perpetrators of EFE that don't necessarily intend to go out and commit a crime, but that they may fall into this category. A common perpetrator would be a family member, unfortunately, and these family members might, first of all, be in a position of caretaking and they don't have illicit intent. But they find that perhaps while they're paying someone else's bills, they think that maybe there's one of their own personal bills that should also be paid because they're helping this individual. Sometimes, you also have family members who want that piece of the pie. And they want it now. The same thing falls into place for individuals who are caregivers. Again, they could be family members. But sometimes individuals have professional caregivers, whether this is a person of their own choice, or perhaps because of their particular situation, the state or someone else had to step in and say, "Well, I need to be a guardian for this person." And there again, they might have the best of intentions, or they could be someone who's looking to take advantage of the individual. The same can be said of financial advisors. They're looking at what they can do for this individual who's come to them for advice. But nonetheless, they're looking perhaps at a way that they could benefit themselves by engaging that person in a particular type of transaction or particular amount of that transaction. The situation also arises commonly with home repair contractors, where they're coming in and they may have the best of intent, or they may not have that intent. They may be just looking at taking the money and running, having them sign a contract, get that down payment and moving along.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  09:13
Is it always a factor of stealing money, or are there other types of exploitations of elder individuals that take place?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  09:23
Well, certainly, financial exploitation touches on the aspect of taking the person's assets. And it can be very easy to think of money as the forerunner because then the individual can do with that whatever they desire. But it could be that they are taking items from the home. It could be that they're attacking more tangible financial assets, certain types of accounts that they might want to turn to their own benefit, whether it's putting it in their own name or otherwise becoming the new manager of that asset. It can be “the stuff” in addition to the money,
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  09:31
It reminds me of some bad situations on television shows where the unsuspecting individual has their business taken from them. The situation sounds pretty horrible. I'm curious. What's the size or magnitude in our economy of EFE victims?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  10:20
Well, Samir, the way I would answer that question is by looking at what some of the studies have shown that these amounts are. I will touch on those numbers first. But I also want to talk about how I believe that these numbers don't fully represent the depth to which these losses occur. There is one recent study that estimates that the financial losses for the EFE direct victims exceed $3 billion. That's a billion with a "B" every year.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  10:55
That's just the people that report.
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  10:57
Yes, that's the people who reported, and that's where I feel that these numbers are probably low. I say that because a large amount of the information for the studies comes out from the Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) that have been filed by financial institutions. The SAR depends on what exact information is communicated on a SAR. It can be rather general. It can talk about that occurred and give a ballpark idea of what the losses are. They might reflect the losses as represented by the individual or it may also involve the losses that the financial institution has suffered. And I would certainly put them as likely victims of EFE as well. You're also looking at information that's been reported to local law authorities. You may have individuals who have just reported that something's occurred, but they don't provide all of the details. So, those numbers aren't reflected in the studies. It also could be that we have a large amount of information missing where whether it's due to embarrassment or they don't want to alienate the caregiver. As I've mentioned earlier, sometimes they feel they still need that person in their life to take care of their day-to-day business. So, that information is never reported. I think that to say $3 billion every year is at least the amount of how this affects our economy.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  12:32
Those are some pretty significant figures that you just quoted there. It gets me a little bit nervous. How are financial institutions actually involved in this process? How did they get brought into it? I know you mentioned SARs. What activity are they monitoring?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  12:48
SARs are reports that they are required to make to FinCEN. They're electronically filed with FinCEN, and that's whenever a bank feels that they are faced with a situation where there's some suspicious activity that needs to be reported. They have a certain period of time in which to make these reports. In that time period, perhaps they do some investigation and they determine that it's not worthy of a SARs. But in many situations, they are still required to file those. However, what happens with that SAR information is local law authority is not given access rights to that. That's where federal agencies have come into play to give the guidance that not only should the SAR be filed by the banks, and they should also be sharing that information with local law authorities. One of the things that I would mention is that the reason that banks get brought into this process, in my terminology, is because they're the right people in the right place at the right time, and it's the right thing to do. So, financial institutions have been seen as individuals who can be key players in identifying that it's already occurred, it's likely to occur, or it could occur again. The reasoning for that is that financial institutions know their customers. They know their members. Perhaps even more so with their older customers and their members. They have more of an opportunity for face-to-face transactions and interactions. You might have the younger generation, so to speak, that they're doing more activity online than the older generation. They might be more inclined to at least pre-COVID, to walking into the bank, having that personal interaction, getting to know who those tellers are and who the other individuals are who assist them in the bank.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  14:58
Do banks actually hold the right to stop the suspicious activity at the time of or do they just have the right to reverse after the fact?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  15:07
They do have rights. There are different federal laws and regulations that come into play with that. But they do have the right to because of the suspicion of EFE that they can hold a transaction, but they may not be able to hold it for very long. They also have the right to notify local authorities. And perhaps those local authorities will also be able to give them the support that they need to maintain some of those transaction holds. It also may be that, depending on what kind of internal documents and agreements have been signed with the customers in advance, that they may be able to hold on transactions until they've been able to reach an authorized third party for confirmation for the transactions to go through. But those holds can't be there indefinitely. This is certainly where an institution would need to review the federal laws and regulations to see what their various options may be. They would also want to be looking at their state statutes to determine whether or not there's any additional support they'd have for either stopping the transaction altogether or at least holding it.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  16:27
Are there any immunities that protect banks?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  16:30
Yes, there are Samir. First of all, on a federal level, you do have several agencies that have not only advocated that financial institutions report known or suspected EFE activity, but these agencies also reinforce. For example, there are some privacy provisions in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. And these permit financial institutions to report suspected EFE, as well as respond to requests for personal identification from law enforcement who might be reaching out to them because they might have been aware of the situation before the bank was. There are the immunity provisions that are provided within that Act, and specifically Section 502. Congress has recently passed the Senior SAFE Act. Within that Act, and this goes back to 2018, that covered financial institutions and their employees who receive specialized training are also further immune from civil and administrative liability for "good faith" reporting of suspected exploitation of senior citizens. On a state level, you also have quite a few different statutes that would provide immunity on both a civil and civil administrative liability for reporting. Again, in all of these situations, it does not need to be held to the standard of someone being able to prove this. In situations where they have that immunity, as long as they have "good faith" that it either has already occurred, it's likely to occur, or it's likely to occur again.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  18:24
Leslie, getting back to our depiction of banks being at the right place at the right time with the right actors for stepping in and helping control the situation. Why is that?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  18:38
Samir, in addition to the fact that they know their customers or their members, financial institutions are seen as being in that unique position where they can spot irregular account transactions or unusual customer behaviors. This is where they can observe or be aware that there's something going on, whether it's in-person communication, or also there's ways to be looking at online transaction analysis.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  19:07
I was just going to ask you how they do that. What are the types of transactions that they have visibility into?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  19:13
The transactions that can appear for these types of situations can be seen as what's grouped as erratic, unusual, atypical banking transactions. Some examples of those types of transactions would be an individual who suddenly starts making frequent large withdrawals. These withdrawals might be increases over what they've done in a prior historical pattern. It could be that they're taking it up to the maximum amounts that they can take out from an ATM every day. It could just be unusual ATM card use. Some individuals don't use them at all, and all of a sudden, they start to do that. Or perhaps they've never wired money as a transaction before, and now all of a sudden, they're coming in and this is a totally different type of transaction for the person. It also might be that someone who seemed to be perfectly able to take care of and manage their deposit accounts, that all of a sudden, they're suffering insufficient funds activity, and the bank is having to apply overdraft fees. Perhaps someone is getting that recurring income, whether it's the social security deposit or pension payment. And the bank might observe going, "Oh, what happened here? We know that this person is still getting this money, but it's not being automatically transferred."
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  20:38
Something changes, right? What is a bank's responsibility around that?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  20:45
What they will want to do is, first of all, is if they've not talked about EFE as a topic with their individual customers, this is their opportunity to ask these customers questions and get to learn a little bit more. "What's going on? We've noticed that this is a little unusual for you. Is there a particular occasion for which you want to have this money? Is there something that you're looking forward to?" I believe that a lot of these types of communications do generate in that face-to-face where you just get to know that teller, you get to know that customer, and while you're standing there making the internal transaction, that someone's going to say, "Oh, I'm so excited, because I just won a lottery,” or “I have a birthday coming up for a niece or a nephew." Depending on the dollar amount, it might mean that you can feel those hairs on the back of your neck, and you can say, “OK. This might be reasonable. It's an unusual transaction for the person, but it's still reasonable.” But when you hear someone tell you that, “Oh, my gosh, I just won this lottery,” then you’ll want to ask them more questions. If the situation isn't coming from a face-to-face transaction, you might have someone in the back office, and they're either running analytics or they're just verifying accounts, and they notice. That's an opportunity to then reach out and ask those questions. "We noticed this." However, if a bank has already talked to an individual about the topic of EFE, perhaps ask them whether or not they'd be interested in having an authorized third party on the bank records so that if something does arise, the bank has the authority to go to that person. Unless they suspect it's the person who's perpetuating the EFE, then it gives the bank the opportunity to reach out to that authorized third party and say, "Hey, we noticed that this is a little unusual. Can you tell us more about it, or is this something that you were aware of?" It's the opportunity to get the information.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  23:07
The way you describe it, it's almost like they automatically get a P.I. hat on and are allowed to investigate all the different factors and the situation. Is that really a similarity that I can draw parallels to?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  23:20
I believe that you can. And, of course, there's always privacy considerations. But there again, if you've had that pre-conversation with the customer, there might be some alleviation there. Earlier you talked about immunity. I believe that if a bank approaches the situation, keeping in mind what type of information needs to remain confidential, along with certainly privacy restrictions, they can be a little bit more general in their inquiry. Truly, they have the opportunity to put that P.I. cap on and see if there isn't a way to protect their customer. Again, it's a way for the bank to protect itself as well.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  24:07
Let's shift a little bit into regulatory bodies and how they perceive the situation. Obviously, they're the ones that are approving or giving guidance to these rights. What can you tell us about that? Which agencies are involved? How does that make an impact into EFE and into how we approach those types of situations?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  24:26
I think what I would do is particularly call out FinCEN and the CFPB. And I call them out because, for many years, they've been issuing, on a consistent basis, a series of advisories. The advisories are not only alerting people and raising the awareness of EFE, but they're the ones who are giving the feedback to our industry to say that these are some bits of information that we're finding. These are the bits of information we're going to use to give you some suggestions and some guidance. Although there are the federal laws and regulations, you still want to look from a regulatory perspective as what are these agencies going to be looking for if they are going to be coming in and doing any examinations. I feel that just knowing that those agencies, in particular, aren't just acting alone, but they're coming out and making joint representations and joint publications. What they've also begun to do - some of them a little bit more than others - is that they're now issuing these reports, not just to the industry, but to Congress as well. I feel that was a great impetus behind the Senior SAFE Act, and it very well could lead to additional regulation moving forward.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  25:58
What's Congress doing with that data? They have a governing body within that now says these are the elderly individuals in our population at a federal level, these are the rules that we've put in place, and they're not being violated. How does it get handled?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  26:11
One of the examples that I would say is that whether it's FinCEN or the CFPB that have been sharing information with Congress, they are being meticulous on maintaining the confidentiality of the information that supports their findings. If you look at the individual studies that are generated by these agencies, they get to the point where they're very reluctant to talk about who were the individual employees of the agencies who did the work. They would talk about the parameters of the study in a very general sense, but they do not provide any information about an individual. They talk about numbers in the aggregate. They are there to report information to Congress that says this is the magnitude of the amount of the losses that individuals and entities are suffering because of this. And it's to persuade Congress to take action, or other agencies to perhaps get more active if they've not been as active as FinCEN or the CFPB. They really want to highly promote being proactive on this because not only is this a way for having that P.I. hat on again to stop it from happening, but it's to keep it from happening to others, or keep it from happening again to the same individuals. And anything that can be done, just support this.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  27:51
How do we track this stuff? I mean, just from my time of being a banker, we would get annual training about what to look out for or what to see. But the reality is you're dealing with day-to-day transactions. You don't get to necessarily see something systemic all the time. How are banks able to look at things from a systemic standpoint, like if it's a pension that's automatically going to a caregiver's account on a monthly basis or any of the other exploitations that you gave an example of earlier on? Is there technology involved? Is there specific third-party technology that happens? Or does the bank just employ a massive number of analysts whose sole job is just to look at transactions and to detect?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  28:32
What the studies have supported, and what the agencies are highly recommending is that you definitely do take seriously training your management and your staff to detect things at that one-to-one personal level. When it does come to going beyond that, especially when the numbers can be so huge, they do advocate taking advantage of the technology that may already exist for that bank. If they've already got an automated fraud detection system in place, see how they can use that information to help them narrow down what they might need to look at for EFE. They might also have anti-money laundering or bank secrecy compliance software. Certainly, see if there's a way to do that. Then, if you're going to get a little bit more sophisticated, and you've either developed on your own or you've, you're working with a particular product for predictive analytics, what you're looking at in that case is if you're starting to see some trends. What might some of those trends tell you that will lead you down the path where these trends are highly indicative of EFE having occurred. I am aware of one particular institution that has their own program, but they've said that they analyze hundreds of thousands of transactions every day via their ongoing software and technology products out of that. They're finding anywhere from 400 to 4,000 transactions that require a closer look. For them, AI isn't replacing the human assessment. But it is greatly reducing the number of transactions where humans do still need to get in there and look at things more closely.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  30:19
That makes a lot of sense to me in terms of many different ways to detect. We talked a little bit about tracking. To what degree does a governing body get involved with tracking? Let's say that I have all those tools in place and now I'm able to do it. I have this list of rules and Congress gets a copy of the list. What's the action that takes place once you know that this is happening? How do we administer that even further, or whom do we have to corroborate with?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  30:59
I don't know that I could make a blanket statement about that. I believe that every financial institution needs to do their own risk assessment to see the degree to which they think that this is an issue for their particular business. Again, you not only have federal agencies to consider, but then there's the state agencies, statutes and laws that will prescribe for them what some of those steps might be.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  31:33
Are the state implications more strict or less strict than federal governance?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  31:39
My response to that would be, it depends. I say that because although we might have a very good record of what's going on at a federal level, we've got a real strong history with that. When it comes to state laws, you have an evolution of those state laws. Within that evolution, you can have a lot of descriptions, or definitions I should say, about what is EFE and who's an older adult. It also will come down to you can have laws in so many different places. All of that is further compounded by the fact that these states change their laws absolutely every year. One of the things I certainly want to share with the audience is that when you're looking at state statutes, there is a legislative tracking product that has shared information on an annual basis. And then they'll also provide some summarization. The summary of the averages is astounding. On average, and here, I'm just looking at the last eight years, there have been 32 states on average that introduce state legislation every single legislative session. And within those states are several states that will introduce multiple bills. And these multiple bills might be in various different statutory chapters. And then of those 32, you have at least 24 that are enacting legislation or adopting resolutions every session. That is the remarkable thing about those who are passing the legislation is that the list every year also includes states that have passed some type of an EFE bill in the prior legislative session.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  33:41
There's growing focus on this particular topic at the state level.
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  33:47
Yes. The other issues that I think are really important to look at, especially within the state level, is that you're going to find that states vary on whether or not a financial institution and their employees or bank officers are required to report. In these situations, within the state statutes, it's required to report to agencies such as the local Adult Protective Services and law enforcement. There are also states that strongly suggest that you should be reporting, but you're not a required reporter. And then there are some states where it’s any person at all - not even narrowing it down to being a financial institution. If you have the knowledge or suspicion of EFE., then you need to make an official report. Again, it might be the local law enforcement, could be to the APS on that. You really need to look at what those laws are. We also have the situation where with this evolution of EFE-related statutes, you also have a state's criminal laws that you need to look at. For most states, that was the genesis for addressing the topic of EFE. But you might not really think about it, as a financial institution, that you need to be looking at the criminal laws. But if those laws are on the books, then it is something that you need to add to your selection of what it is that you're currently monitoring.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  35:29
It still sounds like every state is different, and depending on that state, it determines how you need to adhere to EFE. There's not a one size fits all.
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  35:44
That's correct.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  35:45
If someone wanted to find out their own state regulations or how to govern EFE in their own jurisdiction, how would they do it?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  35:54
We are more than open to having any of our listeners that would like to know more about the state research for their state, where they're located or where they do business. We have an email address where they can contact us, and we'll certainly share that information. It's [email protected]. We just ask that in the subject section you put: Attention: State EFE Mandates.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  36:28
A lot of good detail here and a lot of good information. I thank you for that. When you are consulting with institutions, is it new every single time?
 
Leslie McNally, Consultant with Wolters Kluwer's Compliance Center of Excellence  36:38
It would be different to the extent of wanting to make sure that we've covered information for any recent legislative activity. We also like to work with customers if they've had a change in some of their technology products that they're using. If there's a way that we can assist them in providing information that would assist them in using those products, then we like to share that information as well. A lot of what we talked about on a federal level might be a little bit more on the maintenance type of coverage. But it depends on the customer. It depends on where they're located. It depends on what their experiences have been, and on what their risk analysis has been. We just like to take on every one of our customers as an individual situation to see how we might be able to assist them.
 
Samir Agarwal, Vice President, Banking Compliance Solutions, Wolters Kluwer  37:35
Leslie, it was a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for sharing so much on this critical topic of elder financial exploitation. I know that you'll be continuing to monitor the activity in this area at both the federal and state levels and keeping us well informed. Greg, let me turn it back to you. Leslie, thank you for joining us again.
 
Greg Corombos, News Director at Radio America  37:55
That's Wolters Kluwer Vice President of Banking Compliance Solutions. Samir Agarwal, joined by Leslie McNally, a Consultant in Regulatory Compliance Analysis at Wolters Kluwer’s Compliance Center of Excellence. Wolters Kluwer hosts this podcast and is a market-leading provider of advisory services and technology solutions for optimizing compliance and risk management programs. For more information and additional guidance, please visit Wolterskluwer.com or call 1-800-397-2341. Please join us for future podcasts focused on navigating emerging trends in regulatory compliance.
Samir Agarwal
Vice President & Segment Leader, FCC Community Banking, Compliance Solutions
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