Back to News

Protecting Senior Investors from Financial Exploitation: A Recap of the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Webinar

In this episode of The SIFMA Podcast, SIFMA’s President and CEO speaks with Lisa Bleier, Head of Wealth Management, Retirement, and State Government Relations at SIFMA, and Jennifer Spoeri, Executive Director of NAPSA. Together they unpack key takeaways from the recent World Elder Abuse Awareness Day webinar and discuss the broader efforts by both organizations to protect senior investors from financial exploitation.

Transcript

Edited for clarity 

Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr.: Hello and thank you for joining us for this episode of the SIFMA Podcast. I am Ken Bentsen, President and CEO of SIFMA and your host. World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, observed annually on June 15, was first recognized by the United Nations in 2006. It’s an international observance designed to raise awareness of elder abuse and mobilize communities, organizations, and individuals to take action to protect the dignity and rights of older adults.

In recognition of this important day, SIFMA partnered with the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) to host a timely webinar focused on the growing threat of financial exploitation targeting older adults. The program highlighted the evolving tactics used by bad actors, the role of emerging technologies, and the shared responsibility we all have in protecting seniors from fraud and abuse.

I’m pleased to be joined today by Lisa Bleier, Head of Wealth Management, Retirement, and State Government Relations at SIFMA, and Jennifer Spoeri, Executive Director of NAPSA. We’ll be discussing key takeaways from the event, along with the broader efforts underway by both SIFMA and NAPSA to safeguard senior investors. Comments and questions are welcome; listeners can reach us at [email protected].

Before we dig into key insights from the webinar, I’d like to briefly discuss the work that SIFMA and NAPSA are doing in this space. Lisa, thank you for joining us today. Can you give our listeners an overview of the work SIFMA does to promote senior investor protection? What are some of the key areas of focus for us and our members?

Lisa Bleier: Thank you, Ken, for the opportunity to continue to discuss the importance of this critical issue today. At SIFMA, senior investor protection has been a longstanding core focus of our advocacy and policy work. We work with our members, academic experts, and state and federal policymakers to advance policies, rules, regulations, and statutes that enhance protections and empower financial professionals detect, prevent, and report elder financial exploitation.

SIFMA supported the first state law that gave firms the capability to halt suspicious financial transactions. We later supported a federal law enabling broker-dealers nationwide to place temporary holds on transactions when they suspect financial fraud. We’ve also supported tools such as trusted contact forms, temporary holds on transactions, and safe harbor laws that allow firms to act when they see red flags. A growing number of states have enacted senior investor protection laws that extend to broker-dealers, and several others are currently working to develop a similar path. We also provide educational resources, including our Senior Investor Protection Toolkit, which is available for free on our website. It’s a comprehensive collection of tools to help senior investors safeguard their finances and work with the financial advisors who help them protect those assets.  And finally, we continue to advocate for updates to laws and regulations that help financial advisors stay ahead of emerging threats, such as those posed by AI. Partnering with NAPSA on this webinar was a valuable opportunity to bring more visibility to these efforts and foster cross-sector collaboration.

Bentsen: That’s a lot and really impressive. Jennifer, thank you for also joining us today. How does NAPSA support adult protective services, and what are some of the major issues you’re focused on today?

Jennifer Spoeri: Hi Ken, and thank you I’d also like to reiterate appreciation for this opportunity to discuss the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day event and the work of NAPSA. The National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) is a national non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization with members in all fifty states, DC and the territories. We began in about 1989, the goal of NAPSA is to provide Adult Protective Services (APS) programs a forum for sharing information, solving problems, and improving the quality of services for victims of elder and vulnerable adult mistreatment. And we began in 1989, and now we’re at over 3600 members. So the mission is strong, and our mission is to strengthen the capacity of APS at the national, state and local levels to recognize, report and respond to the needs of elders and adults with disabilities who are the victims of abuse, neglect and or exploitation, and to effectively and efficiently prevent this abuse whenever possible.

But to answer your question regarding issues we’re focusing on these days, I’d have to say really, retaining sustained federal funding of APS through the Social Services Block Grant and the Elder Justice Act remain at the top of our priority list, and other areas we are continually working on are really maintaining partnerships with our allied professional partners, our NAPSA, Financial Exploitation Advisory Board, where SIFMA is a member, is a great example of this. And, you all have been a wonderful partner and, this this event was a point in that direction. So this is especially important because financial exploitation is one of the most frequently reported forms of adult maltreatment.

Bentsen: Thank you. That’s a quite robust and substantive agenda and we’re proud to be a partner with with with NAPSA and you. Let’s turn to the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Webinar, that you all did. Lisa, can you give us a walk-through of the webinar and the key topics that were featured in the program?

Bleier: The webinar was widely attended, with nearly 600 listeners from across sectors —including financial services, regulatory agencies, state governments, adult protective services, and various advocacy organizations. That level of engagement speaks volumes about how seriously the issue of elder financial exploitation is being taken across the board. I opened the event with a few remarks about why this issue is so urgent. By 2030, individuals aged 65 and older will comprise 18% of the U.S. population. According to the FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center report, adults over 60 reported losses totaling $4.9 billion in 2023 due to scams and fraud—and yet, only about 1 in 44 cases is ever reported. That is why the webinar, today’s conversation, and the ongoing work we do at SIFMA and NAPSA is so critical.

At SIFMA, we believe that protecting senior investors is a shared responsibility, and our industry is committed to working together to support these efforts. Our industry serves millions of older Americans who have worked hard to build their savings and deserve to age with dignity and security, without the pervasive threat of falling victim to frauds and scams.

After my remarks, Professor Liz Podnieks of Toronto Metropolitan University delivered a powerful and deeply personal tribute to her late mother, Dr. Elizabeth Podnieks — a pioneer in the field of elder abuse prevention and one of the driving forces behind the creation of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. It was a moving reminder of how personal this issue is, and how one individual’s legacy can inspire global action. We then transitioned to two excellent panel discussions, each addressing a unique aspect of elder financial exploitation.

Bentsen: Jennifer, you moderated the first panel, which focused on undue influence and how to better recognize and respond to it. What were some of the key insights you took away from that conversation?

Spoeri: I moderated the first panel with Candace Heisler, Attorney and retired Assistant District Attorney from San Francisco, and Tara Ambrose, Senior Financial Fraud Ombudsperson at the Minnesota Department of Commerce. I had very little work to do because these two were pretty incredible presenters. But we began with a definition of undue influence and then walk through an actual case involving undue influence to be able to highlight the different takeaways throughout the case.

The case involved an older adult who began sending large checks to a person who said he could increase her return on investment. He did not. And the real financial advisor noticed this activity, and the real financial advisor reported this case to APS and the state securities office. APS then reported this to law enforcement and I’d say the key takeaway here is really to not discredit the fact that undue influence can be criminally prosecuted, whether or not it’s in statute. And, the other interesting fact was, once the police asked the community if anybody else had been affected by this person posing as a financial advisor, they ended up having many other cases linked to the same perpetrator, and the damage done was over $1 million collectively. So it was a great case to really highlight the the damage that undue influence can do.

 Bentsen: Thank you for that summary, Jennifer. Now let’s tune into the first panel discussion.

Panel I: Undue Influence and Solutions

Bentsen: Lisa, the second panel tackled the double-edged nature of artificial intelligence – both its potential to identify and perpetuate scams and fraud. What were some of the highlights from that session?

Bleier: That session was moderated by Howard Tischler, Co-Founder and CEO of EverSafe. The panel included Theo Lau, Founder of Unconventional Ventures, and Bismarck Prado, Director of Fraud & Senior Investor Protection at Commonwealth Financial Network.

Theo Lau opened by walking through the history of AI, explaining that while artificial intelligence has existed since the 1940s, recent advances in generative AI and tools like ChatGPT have made sophisticated scam tools accessible to the public. She provided a striking demonstration of deepfake technology’s capabilities by showing a convincing fake video that was generated from uploading just a single photograph. This live demonstration underscored her warning that such easily accessible tools make scams far more believable and difficult to detect.

Bismarck Prado discussed how AI systems fall into three distinct categories. First is weak AI, which can only simulate human behavior for very specific tasks. The next two categories are still theoretical: strong AI, which would mimic human behavior and learn to solve complex problems, and artificial super intelligence, where AI becomes self-aware and develops its own emotions, beliefs, and desires, potentially ascending beyond human intelligence. Most current applications fall into the weak AI category, including machine learning for transaction monitoring, bots for repetitive tasks, and generative AI that processes massive datasets to create human-quality text and videos.

The panel highlighted both the threats and opportunities of AI in fraud prevention. Prado outlined how fraudsters are weaponizing these AI tools to create fake identification documents, conduct sophisticated spear phishing campaigns, and manipulate victims with realistic voice and video impersonations. However, the panelists also showcased AI’s powerful potential for fraud prevention, with examples like Amazon’s real-time voice authentication system, Google’s AI-powered scam detection, and an Australian bank’s machine learning system that detects potential financial abuse in digital payment notes so successfully that they’re sharing their models for free with institutions worldwide.

The panel concluded with several key takeaways for addressing AI-driven fraud: AI is a double-edged sword that enables more convincing scams but also provides powerful tools for detection and prevention; education and awareness are vital as both professionals and consumers must stay informed about evolving threats; and human oversight matters because technology must be paired with empathy and critical thinking to protect vulnerable populations.

Bentsen: Thank you for that overview, Lisa. Now, let’s tune into this second panel discussion.

Panel II: Artificial Intelligence – How to use it to Help Prevent Scams, and How it is Being Used to Scam

Bentsen: This wraps up our discussion for today and we hope you enjoyed the sessions from the webinar. Lisa and Jennifer, thank you both for your thoughtful insights and for our discussion today. Unfortunately, elder abuse is a perennial problem that requires us all to be extremely vigilant in our work and we believe the partnership with NAPSA is tremendously important for our industry to do its part in this ongoing effort. And thank you all for listening in. To learn more about SIFMA and our work to promote effective and resilient markets, please visit www.sifma.org.

—

You can listen to this conversation by following “The SIFMA Podcast” on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up to receive new episodes, delivered right to your inbox.

Related Resources

More News