Carefull, the first service built to organize and protect older adults' daily finances, today announced a partnership with Boston-based, The Cooperative Bank (TCB) to provide its customers with safe money monitoring technology.
Carefull is thrilled to become a Financial Caregiving partner to TCB, on this cutting-edge service for seniors. The partnership is purpose-built for aging adults and the families who support them.
Carefull's artificial intelligence platform will help TCB's senior customers by analyzing checking, savings and credit card accounts for late or missed payments, behavior change and mistakes, unusual banking activity, plus more than 30 other issues that can impact older adults' finances, from cash transfers to charitable contributions that unknowingly recur. Users of the technology - including the seniors themselves, select family members and caregivers can receive notifications if any fraud or issues are detected.
Through the partnership, TCB will strive to support its senior customers to maintain their financial independence while also giving their "financial caregiver" family members peace of mind. Going beyond typical banking, TCB's Carefull service will also enable robust communication among family members who are involved in the financial safeguarding process.
Additionally, other trusted family members and financial professionals can be added to their "Circle" of support to collaborate within the Carefull service and resolve money issues together.
"With $24 trillion of generational wealth transfer now in motion, the financial services industry is now awake to the 45 million Americans who are financial caregivers for aging adults," said Todd Rovak, a Carefull co-founder, "The TCB team has moved quickly and with intention to impact its customer base, not only to serve it well but to grow it by serving entire families."
"This issue really resonated with me," said John Battaglia, President and CEO of TCB. "Many of us have had personal experiences with our parents or in-laws, where we took over the household account after finding that bills were not being paid, or they were double paying due to some memory issues. When I heard about this product, I could relate to it very well and I know exactly what people are going through," continued Battaglia.
"Senior financial fraud is a serious issue for us all," said Pete Lee, SVP and CIO of TCB. There's a whole life cycle in terms of financial caregiving, and that's what we appreciate about this service and that it targets so many stages of that life cycle. We were shown a concept of the platform and were very impressed by how it could aid the underserved eldercare community and target the devastating effect of financial abuse. Vulnerable adults should be protected at all costs from this kind of exploitation. With this partnership, TCB will be the first bank to offer this service in the Nation," continued Lee.
TCB customers can use the Carefull app or desktop service for financial accounts, credit and identity monitoring at no additional charge as part of the products and services they receive from the bank. They will also have access to Carefull's financial caregiving tools, advice and content, including Carefull's community forum and Financial Caregiving Roadmap.
