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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 is committed to supporting seniors with their banking needs. We at Alterna have put in place all of the requirements needed to meet 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 has strengthened our policies and procedures to help employees identify incidents of suspected financial fraud, financial abuse and scams, and indicators that a customer may be suffering from diminished capacity. We have also provided details on how to escalate any concerns in this regard. We have updated our branch closure policy to consider market demographics when proceeding with branch closures, including the needs of seniors.

A Seniors Champion was selected to lead the implementation of the Code; build awareness with Alterna employees of matters affecting seniors; and engage with seniors, organizations representing seniors and subject matter expert.

Our public website and our internal information resources are available to increase visibility and education around banking for seniors. These include:

• The Senior Support Centre which is an online resource page which provides wide-ranging resources and support for seniors and their support persons. The resources include self-serve banking, banking package discounts, online fraud protection, financial planning, information on powers of attorney and joint accounts, accessibility options and helpful forms. As part of our annual Seniors Code review and as required, we update our website with new relevant information such as fraudulent activities and scams targeting seniors.

• Internal resources for employees to create greater awareness about the tools, training, policies and procedures available to help them assist and protect seniors.

• Annual mandatory training on the Seniors Code for all employees covering 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 by actively sharing examples of real-life scenarios and solutions and using these as coaching opportunities throughout the year.

Alterna Bank is a digital bank. Customers can access branch services through select branches of Alterna Savings. A decision by Alterna on whether to close a branch follows the Alterna Savings branch closure process.

Alterna Savings looks at market demographics when proceeding with branch closures to determine if additional steps need to be taken to assist seniors. These steps may include:

Providing the link to the seniors’ section of our website when issuing branch closure notices.
Advising seniors of available alternatives so that they can continue to bank after the branch has closed.
To ensure that we continue to meet the requirements of the Seniors Code we have integrated it into our regulatory compliance management framework.