Banks Encouraged To Share Information Related To Elder Abuse

One of the most common forms of elder abuse is financial exploitation.  Older adults often have valuable assets and vulnerabilities, such as mental or physical disabilities, that make them prime targets by both strangers and family members.

Banks and other "financial institutions" as defined under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) may be able to spot trends and changes in spending, irregular transactions or account activity that, if reported, could stop further exploitation.  The catch is that GLBA imposes privacy requirements that restriction how and when covered entities can share nonpublic personal information (NPI) without the consent of an individual.  Financial institutions spend a lot of time and resources trying to ensure compliance with the privacy requirements and  have struggled with whether they can share NPI with authorities in the case of suspected elder abuse.