The Cooperative Bank to Launch New Service to Protect Financials of Seniors ‘Carefull’ Detects Scams and Fraud; Provides Sense of Security To Older Adults And Family Caregivers

The Cooperative Bank, TCB, is excited to announce the launch of its partnership with ‘Carefull,’ a new innovative tool that protects and coordinates the daily finances of older adults. Carefull provides intelligent, technology-driven oversight to let older adults and their caregivers better safeguard their financial transactions. The platform analyzes checking, savings, and credit card accounts for late or missed payments, behavior change and mis-takes, unusual banking activity, plus over 30 other issues that can impact older adults’ finances, from cash transfers to charitable contributions that unknowingly recur.  Older adults, families and caregivers receive a notification if any fraud or issues are detected.

“Senior-targeted financial scams are a multi-billion dollar “industry,” said Todd Rovak, Carefull Co-Founder. “We designed our platform to provide transparency, analysis and information for both old-er adults and their caregivers while recognizing the two main sources of financial abuse – fraud and misuse, both external (scammers) and internal, from family members. It connects to financial ac-counts using bank-level security and can never see or store any passwords. It’s truly a privilege for us to partner with TCB on the launch of Carefull to the elder community,” continued Rovak. “It’s clear that TCB truly wants to do something about this issue, not just for older adults but for their families who have been struggling with financial oversight and coordination of a loved one.”

“We’re glad that The Cooperative Bank is taking steps to combat elder abuse and fraud,” said Emily K. Shea, Commissioner of Boston’s Age Strong Commission. “Providing more and easier access to services like banking is right in line with our Age Friendly work–making life in Boston more inclusive to older adults. The more Age Friendly Boston becomes, the more older adults can live safely, independently and with dignity.”

“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 first introduced to Carefull through our membership with Alloy Labs, a nationwide consortium of community banks. 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 protect-ed at all costs from this kind of exploitation. With this partnership TCB will be the first bank to of-fer this service in the Nation,” continued Lee.

“The exciting thing is that not only does Carefull help the community but no other bank is doing this now,” continued Battaglia. “Knowing our customer base and personally experiencing the need, that’s what excites me about the product. If we are going to be a leading bank in the City of Boston we need to innovate and come up with new ideas for our depositors and customers,” said Battaglia.

Founded in 1898, The Cooperative Bank (TCB) is a full-service community bank committed to meeting the financial needs of individuals, families, and small businesses. Offering up-to-date products, competitive interest rates and the highest quality personalized service. TCB has assets totaling $480 million and provides banking services to over 8,400 customers.

With cutting-edge personal and business banking services, TCB aims to serve and be Boston’s Neighborhood Bank. Specializing in residential & commercial real estate and business lending throughout Massachusetts, TCB has branches in Roslindale, West Roxbury, Charlestown and Jamaica Plain.

For more information on the Carefull service please stop by at one of our branches, visit www.thecooperativebank.com, or call 857-203-9598.

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