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Supporting seniors’ banking needs, and those who love and care for them, is fundamental to building stronger communities. This is why Alterna offers easy ways to manage your money and ensures equitable access to all our members no matter how they choose to bank with us.

Alterna Bank (Alterna) is committed to supporting seniors with their banking needs. We have implemented all the required elements outlined in the Code of Conduct for the Delivery of Banking Services to Seniors (“the Code”), which guides Canadian banks in their delivery of banking products and services to Canada’s seniors.

Alterna regularly reviews and updates our policies, procedures and training relating to the Code. These tools are designed to help employees have a better understanding of how they can serve and communicate with senior customers, how to protect them from financial abuse and other fraudulent activities and provide details on how to escalate any concerns in this regard.

Our Seniors Champion ensures that we are compliant with the Code and leads the implementation of initiatives stemming from Code recommendations. These activities include building awareness around issues impacting seniors with Alterna employees and engaging with individual seniors, organizations representing seniors and subject matter experts to help ensure Alterna continues to meet the needs of seniors.

Alterna’s public website and internal information resources provide tools and resources designed to increase visibility and education around the unique banking needs of seniors. These resources include:

• The Senior Support Centre on Alterna’s website. Here, we provide wide-ranging resources and support for seniors and support people. The resources include information on self-serve banking, banking package discounts, online fraud protection, financial planning, information on powers of attorney and joint accounts, accessibility options and helpful forms. We update our website on topics such as fraudulent activities and scams targeting seniors when new information becomes available.
• Internal resources for employees to create greater awareness about the tools, training, policies and procedures available to help us assist and protect seniors.

• Annual mandatory training on the Seniors Code for all employees, which was reviewed and updated by subject matter experts and Alterna’s Seniors’ Champion. The training covers topics such as powers of attorney, joint deposit accounts, supporting seniors with diminished capacity, financial abuse, fraud, scams, financial harm identification, escalation processes, and the available resources for senior customers.
• The promotion of continuous learning through the active sharing of real-life scenarios and solutions. These examples are used as coaching opportunities throughout the year.
• Seniors’ fraud prevention webinars attended by employees. These webinars served to further strengthen awareness of fraud impacting seniors, and ultimately help employees prevent potential fraud impacting our senior customers.

In 2023 Alterna’s mobile banking app was upgraded to optimize tablet compatibility and enhance accessibility for screen reader usage. These upgrades were made based on feedback provided by customers.

Alterna Bank is a primarily digital bank. However, customers can access branch services through select branches of Alterna Savings. A decision by Alterna Savings on whether to close a branch follows the Alterna Savings branch closure process, which includes examining market demographics to determine if additional steps need to be taken to assist seniors. These steps may include:

• Providing customers with the link to the seniors’ section of our website when issuing branch closure notices.
• Advising seniors of alternative branch locations that they can use after the impacted branch has closed. We also let them know that our bilingual Contact Centre is open 7 days a week and is available to assist in completing most transactions.
• Providing seniors support on setting up and using Alterna’s digital channels. We can provide this support in person at the branch or via secured video and voice calling with our Contact Centre.
• Proactively contacting seniors to help set up recurring transactions such as auto deposits for pensions, bill payments, fund transfers, etc.

To ensure Alterna Bank continues to meet the requirements of the Seniors Code, we have integrated it into our regulatory compliance management framework.