An elderly person authorises a bank transfer, hands control of an account to a trusted relative, or responds to a message that appears to come from a loved one. By the time anyone notices that something is wrong, a lifetime of savings may have disappeared.
This is the challenge confronting institutions seeking to protect older adults from financial exploitation. The threat extends beyond conventional scams to include coercion by relatives or caregivers, misuse of legitimate financial authority and increasingly convincing digital impersonation powered by artificial intelligence. In many cases, the warning signs may emerge gradually, while the financial damage becomes apparent only when it is too late.
As populations age and financial transactions become increasingly digital, the question is no longer simply how to respond when exploitation occurs. It is whether banks, governments and the wider network of institutions serving older adults can identify the warning signs early enough to prevent losses without undermining the independence and dignity they are meant to protect.
The challenge of detecting financial exploitation
Elder financial exploitation can take many forms. It may involve scams, fraudulent investments, unauthorized transfers, theft, coercion, manipulation, or misuse of financial authority. Perpetrators may be strangers, but they may also be relatives, caregivers, friends, or trusted individuals responsible for assisting an older person with financial affairs.
Technology has added another dimension to this problem. Artificial intelligence can make deception more convincing, personalized, and scalable. AI-generated voices, images, videos, and messages are now being used to impersonate relatives, financial professionals, government officials, or other trusted individuals. A fraudulent request for emergency funds, for example, becomes significantly more persuasive when an elderly person appears to hear the familiar voice of a child or grandchild asking for help. AI can also enable perpetrators to create highly personalized communications using information obtained from social media and other digital sources.
The significance of this development extends beyond any particular technology. Traditionally, individuals could rely to some degree on familiar voices, appearances, and personal details as indicators of identity. As artificial intelligence makes these characteristics easier to imitate, older adults and the institutions protecting them must operate in an environment in which apparent familiarity is no longer reliable proof of authenticity.
Exploitation by genuinely trusted individuals is equally difficult to detect. A family member may legitimately assist an older person with banking. A caregiver may regularly make purchases on the person’s behalf. An authorized representative may have lawful access to financial accounts. Consequently, the existence of access or authority does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing, but neither does it guarantee that the older person is protected.
Older adults themselves may also be reluctant or unable to report exploitation. Dependence on the perpetrator, fear of losing a relationship, embarrassment, isolation, cognitive impairment, or uncertainty about whether misconduct has occurred can prevent disclosure.
This creates a significant detection gap. By the time exploitation becomes obvious to families, institutions, or public authorities, the money may already be gone.
Moving from reaction to early detection
A stronger approach must shift the emphasis from recovering losses to preventing them. Financial institutions have an especially important role because they can observe changes in financial behaviour as they occur. Sudden large withdrawals, repeated transfers to unfamiliar recipients, unusual changes in account activity, rapid depletion of savings, unexplained asset liquidation, or abrupt involvement of another person in an older customer’s finances may warrant attention.
No single indicator should automatically be treated as evidence of exploitation. Older adults retain the right to control their money, make gifts, change spending habits, and make financial decisions others might consider unwise. Effective protection must therefore avoid replacing exploitation with paternalism. The better approach is risk-based detection. Institutions should consider patterns rather than isolated transactions and combine financial indicators with relevant behavioural and relational warning signs. Where several concerns arise together, the matter should be escalated to personnel trained to evaluate potential exploitation.
Technology can strengthen this process. The same development that creates new opportunities for exploitation can also become part of the defense. Artificial intelligence and advanced analytical systems can help financial institutions identify unusual transaction patterns, rapid deviations from established financial behaviour, suspicious recipient relationships, or combinations of activities that might otherwise escape human attention. These tools could allow institutions to intervene earlier rather than discovering exploitation only after substantial losses have occurred.
However, AI should support human judgment, not replace it. An unusual transaction does not necessarily mean an older person is being exploited. Automated systems must therefore be accompanied by trained human review, appropriate safeguards, and respect for privacy and individual autonomy.
Institutional Action Must Extend Beyond Banks
Financial institutions cannot solve elder financial exploitation alone. The information necessary to identify exploitation is often fragmented. A bank may see unusual transfers. A healthcare professional may observe declining capacity. A social worker may know that an older person has become isolated. A family member may notice that a new caregiver has assumed unusual control over financial decisions. Each participant may possess only one part of the picture.
Effective prevention therefore requires stronger coordination among financial institutions, social services, healthcare systems, law enforcement, community organizations, legal professionals, technology companies, and organizations serving older adults. Professionals who regularly interact with aging populations should also receive practical training on financial exploitation.
Increasingly, that training must include awareness of AI-enabled impersonation and other emerging forms of digital deception. Training should focus not merely on defining abuse, but on recognizing warning signs, responding appropriately, documenting concerns, and knowing where concerns can be referred.
How Governments Can Strengthen Protection
Governments have a central role in creating an environment in which early detection can succeed.
First, governments should establish clear and accessible channels through which suspected elder financial exploitation can be reported and assessed. A fragmented system discourages reporting and delays intervention.
Second, governments should promote greater cooperation among financial institutions, technology companies, and agencies responsible for protecting vulnerable adults. Information-sharing mechanisms should permit appropriate collaboration while preserving privacy and protecting older adults from unnecessary intrusion.
Third, governments should encourage specialized training for professionals likely to encounter financial exploitation, particularly financial-sector employees, social workers, healthcare professionals, investigators, and those responsible for managing another person’s finances.
Fourth, public education must form part of prevention. Older adults and their families should receive accessible information about common forms of exploitation, including AI-enabled impersonation, warning signs, safe financial practices, and methods of independently verifying unexpected requests for money.
Finally, governments need better data. Financial exploitation that is never reported cannot be adequately understood. Improved collection and analysis of information about perpetrators, emerging technologies, methods, losses, vulnerabilities, and institutional responses would allow prevention strategies to evolve as exploitation changes.
So what next?
Protecting aging populations from financial exploitation requires a fundamental shift from intervention after loss to prevention before loss. The threat is also evolving. Artificial intelligence demonstrates how technological progress can simultaneously create social benefits and provide new instruments for deception. As fabricated voices, images, and communications become increasingly convincing, protecting older adults will require institutions to adapt as quickly as those seeking to exploit them.
The objective should not be to restrict older adults’ financial independence or presume that every unusual transaction is suspicious. It should be to build systems capable of recognizing when multiple warning signs indicate that assistance, trust, technology, or access may have become instruments of exploitation. Financial institutions can identify financial anomalies, but governments must create the infrastructure for effective reporting, coordination, education, and intervention. Healthcare professionals, technology companies, social services, families, legal professionals, and community organizations must also be part of the protective network.
An aging world requires more than longer lives. It requires institutions capable of protecting the independence, dignity, and financial security that make those additional years worth living.
Oyindamola O. Adejumobi is a Nigerian-licensed lawyer, an LL.M. graduate and a J.D. candidate at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, with experience spanning banking, corporate and regulatory law, elder law and guardianship matters.
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