Seeing the unseen: protecting older customers from financial abuse

Speaking at the National Elder Abuse Conference, Ms Wall, said financial abuse of older people is often hidden within trusted relationships and can be difficult to identify through any single interaction. Drawing on examples from the bank's experience supporting customers, she noted that frontline teams are frequently required to navigate complex questions involving customer safety, autonomy, consent and privacy.

Ms Wall said effective responses require a combination of prevention, skilled frontline support and systems that can identify red flags earlier. She highlighted the role technology can play in supporting the detection of potential financial abuse, while stressing that technology should complement – not replace – human judgement and a customer-centred approach. Protecting the autonomy and dignity of older people must remain at the centre of any response.

Below is an edited transcript of her keynote address.

Seeing the unseen: protecting older customers from financial abuse

Address by Caroline Wall, Head of Customer Vulnerability, Commonwealth Bank, at the 2026 Australian Elder Abuse Conference

Edited for publication. Some details in the customer case study have been further anonymised.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are meeting today the Yugambeh people and pay my respects to Elders past and present. I also want to acknowledge that today’s conversation references financial abuse and the abuse of older people, which may be difficult or personal for some people.

Abuse of older people is, at its heart, a betrayal of trust. It is often caused not by a stranger, but by someone close. Someone relied upon. Someone expected to act in a person’s best interests.

That is what makes financial abuse of older people so complex. It rarely looks the way we expect it to look. It is often hidden and difficult to see clearly.

If there is one thing I would like you to take away today, it is this: Financial abuse of older people is often hidden, relational and complex. The best response blends prevention, frontline capability and smarter detection, while protecting autonomy and dignity.

Abuse hidden within relationships

We often talk about the scale of this issue. You may have heard that around one in six older Australians report experiencing abuse each year – and that matters. But what also matters is understanding how that abuse happens.

This is not simply about scams or fraud. It is about relationships. Financial abuse of older people does not usually sit outside everyday life. It sits inside it.

It sits inside family relationships. Inside decisions about money, property and planning for the future.

Most often, the person causing harm is known to the individual: a family member, an adult child, a carer or someone else in a position of trust. That changes everything.

It means the abuse is often gradual rather than sudden. It may become normalised within the relationship. And it can be very difficult to name, even for the person experiencing it.

Sometimes it is driven by need, entitlement or misunderstanding. In many cases, however, the behaviour is intentional.

Because the abuse sits within a relationship, it may be hidden behind loyalty, dependence and a desire not to disrupt family dynamics.

That is why this type of abuse does not always trigger obvious warning signs. In fact, some of the mechanisms we encourage people to put in place to protect themselves, such as wills, enduring powers of attorney and family agreements, can also be areas in which risk emerges.

National research found that 88 per cent of community-dwelling Australians aged 65 and over had a will, while 52 per cent had granted someone an enduring power of attorney. These are not edge cases. They are common arrangements. They are designed to protect people, particularly if their decision-making capacity changes. But they may also give another person the authority or practical ability to act on someone’s behalf.

It is in that space, between protection and control, that risk can sit. Financial abuse is not always about someone taking money outright. It may involve:

• pressure to “help out” financially that develops into ongoing control
• decisions being made on someone’s behalf without their genuine consent
• an assumption that an older person’s money or property is available to other people.

Planning tools such as wills and powers of attorney remain important. Research indicates that wills and active powers of attorney are associated with lower reported rates of abuse. But they do not eliminate risk.

The issue is therefore not only whether the right arrangements are in place. It is also how those arrangements are used, and by whom.

A case study: When a power of attorney goes wrong

In October 2025, CommBank received a request for support from a branch manager who had serious concerns about an older customer, whom I will call Debbie.

The branch manager suspected that Debbie was being financially abused by a close family member who was also appointed as her attorney under an enduring power of attorney. Debbie had retained access to a keycard with a limited daily withdrawal amount so she could maintain a degree of financial independence.

A close friend, who regularly met Debbie for lunch, became concerned about what she was observing and helped raise those concerns with the bank. Debbie had said her attorney had taken her keycard, leaving her dependent on irregular visits to receive a small weekly cash allowance. When the visits became less frequent, her friend became worried that the attorney was not fulfilling their responsibilities. A deeper review by the branch team identified much more serious concerns. More than $150,000 of Debbie’s money had been spent in less than two years, and the pattern of spending had begun to affect the payment of her aged-care expenses.

The branch manager acted quickly, restricting the attorney’s access to prevent further potentially harmful transactions. Unfortunately, much of Debbie’s savings had already been depleted, and her pension alone would not cover her ongoing care needs. The matter was escalated to our specialist team and referred to the relevant state authority for investigation.

Banks are not generally entitled to information about the outcome of those investigations. We therefore rarely learn what happens unless information is subsequently shared with us by the customer or another relevant party.

In this case, Debbie later told the branch manager that the attorney had faced charges and received a custodial sentence. Her aged-care provider worked with Centrelink to address the arrears and apply for hardship assistance, helping to reduce the financial burden on her. The provider also agreed not to make further attempts to draw on the small balance remaining in Debbie’s bank account, ensuring she retained access to some money for personal expenses and her regular lunches with friends. Work then began to determine the most appropriate long-term financial decision-making arrangements for her.

To me, this story demonstrates what can happen when people collaborate and form a web of care around someone. I think of the unbroken chain of hands – the acts of insight, kindness and courage – that makes an outcome like this possible.

The customer became safer. Her finances began to stabilise. Her day-to-day wellbeing was better protected.

That was only possible because of the specialist team’s hard-won referral processes, Debbie and her friend’s courage in coming forward, the branch team’s instinct to look more deeply and seek additional support, the work of the investigating authority, and the thoughtful and compassionate response of the aged-care provider.

Small actions on our part can contribute to life-changing outcomes for customers who may otherwise have no one looking out for them.

The decisions facing frontline teams

This issue plays out in very real, very human moments, often in a branch or during a telephone call. When this occurs staff are frequently required to navigate a number of tensions.

Older people have the right to make their own decisions, including decisions with which other people may not agree. When something feels wrong, the question is therefore not only, “Is this safe?” It is also, “Is this their choice?”

Stepping in too early may feel like taking control away from someone. Stepping in too late may mean missing an opportunity to prevent harm. When staff identify possible signs of pressure or coercion, they may be left asking: When do we intervene? And how do we do that without removing the customer’s control?

Capacity and consent

Powers of attorney are intended to support decision-making and protect people from harm. But they rely heavily on trust and on the person exercising that authority having the right intent.

What we see in practice is that misuse does not always resemble overt fraud. It can develop gradually. It can be rationalised. It can exist within a family relationship that otherwise appears functional.

Staff may therefore be trying to interpret something very subtle: Is this person genuinely acting in the customer’s best interests, or not?

Privacy and early intervention

Privacy requirements can also create practical challenges for early intervention.

Staff need an appropriate basis before sharing information or taking certain actions. That can create hesitation when the signs of abuse are emerging but the full picture is not yet clear. Act too early and there is a risk of overstepping or unnecessarily limiting a customer’s choices. Wait too long and there is a risk that the harm will continue.

These are difficult decisions. Frontline teams need the training, confidence and specialist pathways to respond appropriately when the situation is uncertain.

Prevention that supports independence

For all this complexity, one thing is clear: earlier action can lead to better outcomes. That is why prevention matters so much. Prevention, when done well, does not remove independence. It supports it. It gives people information and tools to make decisions confidently before pressure, coercion or control takes hold.

Resources such as CommBank’s Safe & Savvy guide are designed with that principle in mind. They do not assume vulnerability. They do not talk down to or infantilise older people. Instead, they aim to:

• normalise the reality that financial abuse can happen
• make it easier to recognise early warning signs
• provide practical and accessible steps that people can take.

The reality is that some mechanisms intended to protect older people can also be misused to harm them. Prevention therefore works best when it is clear, practical and respectful of independence.

Or, put simply: abuse thrives in silence, but prevention thrives in plain language.

Using technology to support human judgement

Technology has added another layer and is changing the nature of abuse. It can make life easier, but it can also be used to exert control.

We see situations in which technology may be used to monitor activity, influence or pressure decisions, or enable access to finances in ways that were never intended. There are not always clear red flags.

This is where detection becomes important, not as a replacement for human judgement, but as a way of supporting it. An individual employee may not be able to see a pattern developing. But appropriately designed systems, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, may be able to identify patterns over time.

The opportunity is not only to detect harm after it has occurred. It is to create moments in which that harm can be interrupted. The possibility that harmful behaviour may be detected can also act as a deterrent. This requires us to shift from looking only for isolated red flags to recognising patterns and understanding context.

Detection alone will never be enough. But it can play an important role in helping frontline teams achieve safer outcomes for older customers.

What we need to do next

When we step back, it becomes clear that there is no single intervention that will end the financial abuse of older people. The issue is not simple. It is shaped by relationships, systems, law and human behaviour. Our response needs to be equally layered.

As we heard from the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department and other speakers, much of the work on domestic and family violence is more advanced than our current understanding of elder abuse. Yet the overlap between these issues is significant, particularly when we look through the lens of financial abuse and coercive control. 

In both contexts, harm is often perpetrated by someone known and trusted by the victim-survivor. It is relational, hidden, and frequently involves the misuse of dependency, trust and access to money, information or decision-making. We have learned a great deal through our work responding to financial abuse in the context of Domestic and Family Violence, and we believe those lessons can help tackle elder abuse.

That is why we are bringing these areas together under our existing Next Chapter program, to build on what we know works and increase the focus on financial abuse of older people.

Across government, industry, financial institutions, service providers and community organisations, there are three important areas for continued collective action.

First, strengthening prevention. This includes normalising conversations about financial abuse and making practical information and planning tools easier to access, so people can recognise warning signs and respond earlier.

Second, building frontline capability. Frontline teams across sectors need the confidence, training and referral pathways to respond to uncertainty and navigate the complexities of autonomy, capacity, consent and privacy.

Third, designing smarter systems and safeguards. There is an opportunity for organisations to explore how technology and other safeguards can help identify patterns and reduce the misuse of products and services, without creating new forms of harm or unnecessarily limiting people’s independence.

Throughout all of this, one thing must remain constant. Every response must be grounded in something that cannot be compromised: the autonomy and dignity of older people.

Ending the financial abuse of older people is not about one organisation doing more. It is about all of us recognising the complexity, and responding better, together.

Support is available

Anyone concerned about elder abuse can contact the National Elder Abuse phone line, 1800 ELDERHelp, on 1800 353 374 for free and confidential information, support and referrals.

Anyone worried about their finances because of domestic or family violence, financial abuse or coercive control can contact the CommBank Next Chapter Team on 1800 222 387 for support – even if you do not bank with CommBank.

In an emergency or if you are not feeling safe, call 000.

¹The National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study was commissioned by the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department and surveyed 7,000 Australians aged 65 and over living in community dwellings between 12 February and 1 May 2020. The findings were published in December 2021.