Supporting the Protection of Elders Through Financial Literacy

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 328.

I thank Representative Rose for working on this resolution with me in a bipartisan manner, as well as Chair Waters and her staff for their commitment to seniors and financial literacy.

H. Res. 328 supports the security of seniors through the promotion of financial literacy. This resolution supports the critical public- private partnerships that enable collaboration among law enforcement, financial institutions, and regulatory agencies to expand financial literacy and to detect fraud and scams against seniors.

America's seniors have worked hard to raise families, pay their taxes, protect our country, and build our communities. They have scraped and saved to ensure their financial futures.

Ten thousand baby boomers are turning 65 every day and, by 2030, the number of Americans aged 65 and older will more than double to 71 million, or about 20 percent of the United States population.

These older Americans, who have given so much, are increasingly being targeted for financial exploitation. And in this digital age, with personal information so easily procured, the scams are only getting more complex and harder to detect. We cannot stand by and let our parents and grandparents continue to be ripped off by increasingly savvy con artists.

What would this resolution do?

It would support the goals of Financial Literacy Month to raise public awareness about the importance of personal financial education in the United States;

It would acknowledge that raising awareness of threats to personal finances, especially for populations like older adults and their relatives and caregivers, is only one part of financial literacy;

It would recognize that to combat elder financial exploitation, it is also necessary to encourage continued collaboration among law enforcement, financial institutions, regulatory agencies, and private sector organizations to allow the detection, prevention, reporting, and investigation of those crimes;

It would support work being done by FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and its partners to educate the stakeholders that serve and protect America's elder community;

It would urge continued public-private partnership and appropriate information sharing to prevent, detect, report, and investigate elder financial exploitation; and

Finally, it would urge action to assist with remediation and reporting, as well as prevention and detection to have the best possible data, feedback, and incident response.

The path to economic security begins with basic money management. But in an increasingly complex financial landscape, we cannot limit our focus on financial literacy only at the level of individuals and caregivers. We must also include financial institutions, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies so that they can work together to understand and detect these frauds and scams.

Financial exploitation can be devastating. Studies have shown that seniors who suffer from abuse, neglect, or exploitation are three times more likely to die than their counterparts.

Adding to this devastation--and this is painful, but we have to admit it--is the exploitation is often committed by family members, by trusted friends, or by caregivers. Financial abuse often occurs with the implied acknowledgement and/or consent of the elder person and therefore can be much more difficult to detect or to prove.

Employees within the financial services industry may often be the first to detect those changes in the behaviors of customers with whom they have regular contact. That frontline relationship places institutions in a unique position to assist to protect customers, upholding the inherent trust relationship with their clients.

In acknowledging this role, FinCEN issued an advisory to financial institutions on filing suspicious activity reports regarding elder financial exploitation that would provide red flag indicators and instructions on how to report elder financial exploitation through suspicious activity reports.

Timely reporting of suspicious elder financial exploitation activity is critical to engaging entities that may have complementary information on the victim or the perpetrator and may be well positioned to collaborate or investigations.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 328, supporting efforts to combat elder financial exploitation.

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