Bank launches new series to help seniors have more financial planning discussions with their adult children
Scotiabank has partnered with the non-profit Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) to provide seniors with a Let’s Talk Money: Seniors set of resources to help those aged 60 and up and their adult children start talking more about financial planning.
“The CFEE initiative is really one aspect of our commitment to our customers,” Ahmad Dajani, Scotiabank’s Vice President and Seniors Champion, told Wealth Professional. “That’s why we have voluntarily committed to the Seniors’ Code of Conduct, which requires us to have policies and procedures specific to seniors and to communicate to them in formats that are meaningful to them.”
CFEE’s recent survey showed that, while 72% of seniors with adult children said that family conversations around financial planning were important, only 19% reported having them.
The free Let’s Talk Money: Seniors series can be found on CFEE’s website with links to Scotiabank’s Seniors Resource Centre. It includes webinars and podcasts that seniors and their families can listen to in order to spark a range of financial conversations. Topics include retirement and living situations, managing assets, life insurance, wills and inheritance, and power of attorney.
“I think the resources can be used to strengthen their knowledge about money matters,” said Dajani. “But, I think the uniqueness of the CFEE initiative is that it’s focused on conversations within the family. It’s really about empowering them with the resources and perspectives from other seniors. There are seven senior champions who provide their own personal perspectives on how they’ve managed those conversations within their families.
“Seniors have told us that these types of family conversations are important, and this initiative addresses that feedback. One of the things that we’re always doing is listening to what our seniors are communicating to us. They’ve communicated to us that this is an important initiative for them, so we’ve made that available to them.
“We want to support our senior customers to become better off,” he said, “and one of the ways to do that, I think, is to certainly strengthen their financial literacy.”
