Synovus offers fraud, scam protections with Carefull

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Synovus Bank announced this week it would be collaborating with Carefull, which provides consumer-oriented fraud prevention products, including for elders. The initiative gives Synovus customers across the southeast new protections against falling for fraud and scams or making money mistakes.

Executives from Synovus, which is based in Columbus, Georgia, and has approximately $60 billion of assets, said the partnership is meant to address the growing incidence of financial exploitation, which can affect people of all ages but especially hurts older adults.

"Our business is built on trusted relationships with clients, so we want to be the first line of defense in protecting them from fraud and scams while strengthening our multigenerational banking relationships," said Liz Wolverton, executive vice president and head of consumer banking and brand experience at Synovus, in a press release.

Wolverton said the partnership with Carefull makes good business sense for the bank because it will help the bank build trust with its customers.

"We're committed to protecting our clients and their financial futures," Wolverton said. "If we enable them to manage their days with less risk and a strong sense of security in a way that differentiates and delights, Synovus will continue to gain confidence from our clients and partners. And Carefull helps us do just that."

Carefull is a financial safety platform designed to protect aging adults, their families and financial institutions from elder fraud, scams and money mistakes. The company maintains an AI model for account monitoring, identity protection products and similar offerings. Carefull sells both directly to consumers and to banks looking to offer Carefull services to their customers.

The Synovus-Carefull partnership announcement is part of a broader trend in which banks are playing a more hands-on role in preventing financial exploitation.

Federal regulators and states are pushing elder protections

Many states have introduced or expanded laws that permit or require banks to hold transactions or contact Adult Protective Services if exploitation is suspected. Regulators, state agencies and industry groups concerned about the mounting losses to scams that elderly Americans suffer have driven these changes, which Carefull CEO Todd Rovak framed as an opportunity for banks.

"Great financial institutions have realized there is an opportunity to become a powerful ally to consumers amid threats and risk," Rovak said. He added that his company's approach to romance, political and charitable giving scams helps catch potential losses sooner than they would be otherwise.

One key feature Carefull offers that regulators have pushed is trusted contacts. This function allows an account holder to grant access to select account and transaction information to family members, financial advisors, attorneys, accountants or anyone else the user trusts.

Trusted contacts allow the support network of an account holder to keep an eye out for suspicious activity, and it allows the bank to inform someone else in the account holder's life if there is suspected fraud.

Trusted contacts have received mention in both industry letters from federal bank and credit union regulators and state laws designed to enable banks to implement such features.

Regulators and lawmakers have promoted other strategies, as well. A letter from several bank and credit union regulators in December detailed nine of them, including trusted contacts, consumer outreach and employee training.

Older people are disproportionately affected by scams

The Federal Trade Commission estimates consumers lost between $24 billion and $158 billion to fraud in 2023. Roughly a third of these losses affected people aged 60 or older, even though less than a quarter of the U.S. population falls in that age range, suggesting older adults lose more money to scams than younger adults.

While recent research on the subject is lacking, previous findings have indicated that age correlates with susceptibility to scams, even in the absence of dementia.

In a paper published in 2015 by the Department of Health and Human Services, researchers provided decision-making assessments to 639 adults without dementia who lived in retirement and subsidized housing around Chicago. The researchers found strong evidence of increased susceptibility to scams with age.

The study also found susceptibility to scams correlated closely with lower income, lower cognition, diminished psychological well-being, less social support and reduced financial literacy. Other studies have reached similar conclusions.

Additionally, polling last year by the University of Michigan showed that elders with less than $60,000 in annual income said they were more likely to suffer from scams than people with higher incomes. Likewise, older adults who self-described their mental health as fair or poor were also more likely to report being the victim of a scam.