A regular theme has been frustration with banks and other financial service advisors and their inflexible or unpredictable requirements. I cannot have been the only one who had a complete meltdown when faced with a stoney faced cashier who demanded two forms of photo ID before giving an 83 year old, newly out of hospital and needing to pay for convalescent care, access to her money. A level of consistency would be great, as would banks being required to show that their systems were fit for purpose when it came to the vulnerable elderly. The dream would be electronic access to POA documents for authorised users, perhaps similar to access to the land registry or electoral roll, saving on the cost of getting solicitors make copies.
I would also like to see thought given to how banks react to people with declining capacity. At the moment the approach seems to veer from saying people have full freedom to make decisions, even if they are bad ones, to freezing the account. Possibly some form of "emergency arbitration" where a bank employee is able to work with a close relative to make emergency "best interests" decisions. Unfortunately, and probably inevitably, many people refuse to make proper plans for when they lose capacity. Meaning that when the crisis hits and they really need access to their "rainy day money" it is not available.
I would also like to see mechanisms that would allow prompt action once CABs and other's become aware of scams that prey on the elderly and perhaps the ability to block the buying and selling of addresses and phone numbers of people known to be vulnerable. I cleared a skip load of junk mail from charities and dodgy vitamin sellers from my mother's flat and discovered she had no less that 12 sets of "protection" on her Sky TV box, all multi year contracts, sold over the phone.
I could go on but....
it seems the FCA have decided to look at the issue.
www.fca.org.uk/news/dp16-01-ageing-population
There is the inevitable mention of stakeholders which always suggests a Saturday night out at a Berni Inn. However a number of us have seen the problems first hand and will have valuable experience to contribute. It would be nice if we could use our voice.
Perhaps they might even invite us to meet and we could go along wearing our leopard print scarves.
Please add any ideas you might have to this thread. I think my contribution to the consultation will be a lengthy one.
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Elderly parents
Consultation on Financial Services for the Elderly
2 replies
Needmoresleep · 07/03/2016 10:39
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