Aspectos legales:

Table 5.23 provides example quotations from banking professionals to illustrate some of the key decisions made where financial elder abuse was suspected.

Table 5.23: Examples of decisions made by banking professionals in cases of suspected financial elder abuse

Decision Quote Whether to

question the customer

"...what we do in these particular instances, we, we try and make discrete enquiries in conversation just to establish the purpose of the transaction you know, why the cash or the cheque is needed." (Financial crime investigator - MB13. 114-116)

Whether to inform superior

"I think the most important decisions would probably be for me, having to go to my line manager to say look we can’t let this woman access the account" (Customer advisor - DB9. 127-128)

Whether to take action

"I think stopping any more financial transactions. You know, we have to make sure the customers finances are safe first and foremost and then decide how to deal with the situation. How do we get the money back or who do we report it to…" (Cashier - DB20. 153-155)

"We can’t stop them having the money because, well we can’t obviously it’s their money so we have to continue to let it go but we will monitor the account and as I say we’ll try and speak to them as well." (Financial crime officer - MB14. 319-321)

The next section addresses the difficulties professionals identified with making decisions in cases of suspected abuse.

What are the case features that can make decision making

difficult?

Banking professionals talked about various features of situations where financial elder abuse was suspected that could make decision making difficult. Findings from individual analysis by MD in relation to decision making difficulties are reported in Appendix 5.11. Four key difficulties identified included (1) the perceived consequences of action, (2) whether it was possible to take any action, (3) working with external agencies and (4) physically identifying financial elder abuse. These categories are outlined in Table 5.24 below using illustrative quotations from the banking participant interviews.

Table 5.24: Difficulties of taking action in cases of suspected financial elder abuse Category Sub category Quote

The perceived consequences of action Loss of customers business

"Obviously the repercussions for us, that she may no longer do any business with us…" (Financial crime investigator - MB19. 47-48) Making the

situation worse for the older person if mistaken

"we didn’t know whether his daughter was trying to help or whether she was just kind of taking money off him" (Customer advisor - DB7. 27-28) Whether it was possible to take action Protecting customers confidentiality

“…without authority or any kind of permission to speak to the family. I don’t think we’d be in a position to do that.” (Financial crime

investigator - MB19. 88-89)

Prosecution not possible

"...we couldn’t- literally couldn’t go any further. We would want the police to take action, but based on the elderly people not being able to be witnesses, that wasn’t sort of viable." (Financial crime officer - MB14. 107-109)

Working with external agencies

Lack of sensitivity

“…we have had occasions where we’ve had local policeman gone in with his size 12 feet and … said ‘the local bank have told us you’re withdrawing out loads of cash can you tell us what it’s for?’ and of course family then get quite irate…” (Financial crime officer - MB14. 415-418)

Difficult to share information

“…you do feel really sorry for these people because at the end of day the bank can’t do anything…all I could do was work out how much had gone, help him and sort out his finances, what we did do as well, it’s difficult between banks because you’re not supposed to divulge anything [with] data protection and everything…” (Branch manager - LB2. 69-75)

Physically identifying financial elder abuse Customer denies abuse

"...if the customer that you are dealing with is absolutely convinced in their own mind that everything is hunky dory and is all right, and the branch just has suspicions, you know at the end of the day, we have to respect our customers – it’s their money and their right to do whatever they want." (Financial crime investigator - MB13. 226-229) Determining if the customer has sufficient mental capacity to make financial decisions

"you don’t know whether the customer’s just completely lost it because he has got

something [like] Dementia, … maybe he’s just getting confused, or whether or not they genuinely had taken his money and were genuinely kind of stuck" (Bank manager - DB10. 244-247)

The last section of the results considers what would make decision making easier for banking professionals. Findings from analysis of the sub-set of banking interviews by MD to identify factors that could make decision making easier is reported in Appendix 5.12.

What are the case features that can make decision making easier?

A number of participants said that having specific guidelines for how to deal with suspected financial elder abuse would make it easier for them to take decisive action. The quotation below was from a customer advisor:

"..if there was something set in stone, that says this is what you need to do, and this is what you can do within your own powers kind of thing" (DB7. 96-

98)

It was also said that improving how different agencies work together would help the situation. The following quotation was from a financial crimes investigator discussing how having contacts in other agencies was helpful:

"…contact details also useful, … when to contact the police, when to contact social services, when to maybe just kind of monitor for a while things like that. Yeah contacts would be great" (MB19. 247-249)

In the next section the results across the three professional groups are discussed in more detail, finishing with consideration of how they will inform Phase II of the research.

5.3 Discussion

Phase I findings for social care, health and banking professionals are discussed at an overall level in order to consider the similarities and differences between the professional groups.

What are the cues that raise suspicions of financial elder abuse?

Analysis identified two shared cues that raised suspicions of financial elder abuse across the three professional groups. These included the person who identified the abuse ‘identifier of the abuse’, and the nature of the ‘financial problem suspected’. Social care and health professionals also considered the ‘mental capacity’ of the older person as a cue, and the health professionals used ‘physical capacity’ as a cue. Banking professionals independently considered ‘who is in charge of the older person’s money?’ as a cue of financial elder abuse.