Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Special Committee onAging, has reintroduced her Senior Safe Act, which is designed toprotect vulnerable adults from financial exploitation.
|In introducing the Senior$afe Act of 2017 (S. 223), Collins,R-Maine, noted that the bill aims to protect banks, credit unions,investment advisors, broker-dealers, insurance companies andcertain supervisory, compliance and legal employees from civil oradministrative liability — as long as they receive training inhow to spot and report predatory activity and disclose any possibleexploitation of senior citizens to state or federal regulatory andlaw enforcement entities.
|A similar bill passed the House last July.
|Collins' bill is based on Maine's Senior$afe program, acollaborative effort by Maine's regulators, financial institutions and legal organizationsto educate bank and credit union employees on how to identify andhelp stop the financial exploitation of older Maine residents.
|The program, pioneered by Maine Securities Administrator JudithShaw, also serves as the template for a model ruledeveloped for adoption at the state level by the NorthAmerican Securities Administrators Association.
|The Financial Services Institute said Tuesday that it urges theSenate “to support the Senior$afe Act of 2017, ensuring thatfinancial advisors and broker-dealers have the ability to reportsuspicions of financial exploitation whenever they suspectfraudulent behavior without fear of liability,” according to astatement.
|NASAA President and Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce MikeRothman believes Collins' bill “will better protect persons aged 65and older from financial exploitation by increasing the likelihoodit will be identified by financial services professionals, and byremoving barriers to reporting it, so that together we as statesecurities regulators and other appropriate governmentalauthorities can help stop it,” he said in a statement.
|To better ensure that financial services employees have theknowledge and training to identify “red flags” associated withfinancial exploitation, the bill would require that, as a conditionof receiving immunity, financial institutions train certainpersonnel regarding the identification and reporting of seniorfinancial exploitation.
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Melanie Waddell
Melanie is senior editor and Washington bureau chief of ThinkAdvisor. Her ThinkAdvisor coverage zeros in on how politics, policy, legislation and regulations affect the investment advisory space. Melanie’s coverage has been cited in various lawmakers’ reports, letters and bills, and in the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule in 2023. In 2019, Melanie received an Honorable Mention, Range of Work by a Single Author award from @Folio. Melanie joined Investment Advisor magazine as New York bureau chief in 2000. She has been a columnist since 2002. She started her career in Washington in 1994, covering financial issues at American Banker. Since 1997, Melanie has been covering investment-related issues, holding senior editorial positions at American Banker publications in both Washington and New York. Briefly, she was content chief for Internet Capital Group’s EFinancialWorld in New York and wrote freelance articles for Institutional Investor. Melanie holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson University. She interned at The Baltimore Sun and its suburban edition.
