The BankSafe Initiative helps the financial industry better meet consumers’ financial needs and safeguard their assets. The initiative focuses on four key areas:

• Preventing financial exploitation
• Empowering family caregivers
• Helping those with dementia
• Making banking tools and environments easier to access

With the average victim losing $120,000, prevention of financial exploitation is critical to AARP’s mission to empower people to choose how they live as they age. BankSafe meets this need by conducting research into consumer insights, facilitating partnerships between the aging network and the financial industry, and developing the innovative BankSafe training platform to help financial professionals identify and stop suspected exploitation.

The Impact of AARP BankSafe

Researchers from Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology studied the impact of training bank and credit union staff to spot and prevent financial exploitation. The research shows significant benefits to consumers and financial institutions when frontline employees take the AARP BankSafe training rather than other forms of training, including:

• A 133% increase in knowledge regarding exploitation
• Four times greater employee confidence in recognizing, preventing, and reporting cases of financial exploitation
• An average of 12 times more money protected per employee 

Apply for the AARP BankSafe Trained Seal    

As part of the BankSafe program, banks, credit unions and investment firms can apply to have AARP verify that at least 80% of their frontline staff successfully passed the BankSafe training and confirm that they have a financial-exploitation escalation reporting policy. Qualifying banks, credit unions, and investment firms in good standing can apply to receive a seal from AARP, good for one year, recognizing their commitment to fighting exploitation. Learn how to earn the BankSafe trained seal.