Dementia Support Line
Dementia-friendly finance
Find out how financial services can become more dementia-friendly by reading our information and downloading your free resource.
The symptoms of dementia can make interactions with financial service providers difficult, particularly if a person experiences forgetfulness or difficulty following processes.
This can have significant consequences – for example forgetting to pay a bill could result in debts. With support and adjustments from financial service providers, people affected by dementia can continue to independently manage their finances and access insurance that meets their needs.
The dementia-friendly finance guide highlights the many ways finance and insurance companies can transform themselves to better support people affected by dementia, so they can live and participate in their local community.
‘[The bank] didn’t ask me how they could support me. I have now left [the bank]. I had been with them since I was 18 and registered at university in Cambridge.
The bank should appreciate that I have dementia, and they should be able to signpost and offer me support. They made it extremely difficult for me to continue to interact with them.’
- Mark, living with dementia
Dementia-friendly financial guide
This free resource is full of dementia-friendly tips and advice for any size of financial service
Becoming a dementia-friendly financial service means providing support through greater awareness and understanding to every person living with dementia, either members of the public in the community or employees who are impacted. This will make a huge difference to those affected by dementia and their quality of life.
We need to ensure that finance and insurance sector employees are aware of the impact of dementia, and consider environments and processes to safeguard and support people to continue to live well in their community.
Take a look at our case study with HSBC UK and Hong Kong.
The Santander Dementia Guide.
Santander are working in partnership with Alzheimer’s Society to become a truly dementia-friendly bank because they know that, with the right support, it’s possible to live well with dementia.
By making banking more accessible, Santander are enabling their customers living with dementia to continue managing their finances independently for as long as they can. Santander also want to make it possible for them to get the support they need and enable their carers and family members to help. This supports financial inclusion, a crucial part of their Sustainability Strategy to become a more responsible bank.
There's a lot of information out there and sometimes it’s hard to know where to look. To help out, Santander has worked with Alzheimer’s Society to develop a practical Dementia Guide outlining the support available for people affected by dementia, both customers and colleagues.
Download the guide here.
We need financial services to take action and support people affected by dementia at this difficult time to ensure they continue to have access to cash and can manage their finances during this difficult time.
Here are some of the actions you can encourage financial providers to do today to make a difference to people’s lives:
- Create a webpage with specific advice for customers who can no longer come into branches because they are self-isolating
- Ensure all information is thoroughly explained as many customers will not be used to accessing information online
- Ensure that customers who are flagged as vulnerable, and those who are not using online platforms, are sent communication in the post to ensure they can access the same information as online customers
- Suspend overdraft fees
- Offer phone appointments
- Ensure contact centre colleagues are not rushing customers by suspending call centre targets for the next 12 weeks
- Create a dedicated phone line for vulnerable and isolated customers as other phone lines will be busier than usual
- Ensure your websites are digitally accessible for everyone
- Offer community outreach support to ensure isolated people still have access to cash to pay for groceries. This could mean bringing card machines to them and wider acceptance of cheques
Dementia-friendly financial guide
This free resource is full of dementia-friendly tips and advice for any size of financial service
