Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and Fig Financial, a leading Canadian online financial services provider and fintech backed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is shining a light on one of the fastest-growing threats facing older Canadians: financial fraud. Canadians lost at least $704 million to fraud in 2025, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, and with only an estimated five to ten per cent of scams ever reported, the true toll is far higher. Older adults consistently report the largest losses of any age group, with fraud now considered the number one crime against older Canadians.
As Fig reviews thousands of loan applications, it has a unique window into how scams operate, including cases where scammers coach victims into applying for loans on their behalf. As part of its fraud prevention process, Fig proactively monitors for these warning signs and alerts borrowers before money changes hands. This is a pattern Fig sees firsthand with borrowers aged 65+ who represent approximately 66% of all scam cases identified and flagged.
Other Key Findings from Fig:
- Baby Boomer applicants are about 75 times more likely to be scam victims than Gen Z applicants
- Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta show the highest scam rates in the country, 1.5x the rate of other provinces
- Nearly 9 in 10 identified scam cases (85-90%) originate from urban applications
- Victims are most concentrated in the $40,000-$50,000 income bracket
How Fig is Protecting Customers
To fight back, Fig developed Fig Shield, an in-house technology designed to protect applicants from scams. The tool looks for patterns that may indicate organized fraud is targeting someone, reducing the time spent manually searching for warning signs, and allowing Fig’s fraud team to intervene faster before money leaves a victim’s hands. You can view the Fraud Prevention Portal here.
Fig Shield is a proprietary machine learning model built on applicant behaviour. It identifies whether applicants fall into a known “scam cluster,” exhibiting behaviours typical of scam victims. These high-risk clusters represent as little as 8% of daily applications, but triggering Fig’s fraud team to review and intervene has significantly cut manual review time by surfacing potential victims and directing prevention efforts where they make the biggest impact.
How Law Enforcement is Helping
Law enforcement says this type of early detection is critical because recovery is often impossible.
David Coffey, Detective, Financial Crimes Unit with the Toronto Police Service.recently sat down on Fig’s brand-new podcast to discuss the growing threat of scams and financial crime in Canada, including the most common schemes targeting Canadians, from romance and investment scams to grandparent scams that prey directly on seniors – Scams, Fraud & Financial Crime.
Protecting Canadian Seniors from Financial Abuse
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, recognized by the United Nations on June 15, draws attention to the abuse and exploitation of older adults, with financial abuse among the most common and underreported forms. Learn more about how Fig Financial and Fig Shield can help at https://fig.ca and https://fig.ca/en/learn/fraud-prevention-portal.
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This entry was posted on June 15, 2026 at 8:27 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Fig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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This World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, Fig Financial is using AI to spot senior scams
Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and Fig Financial, a leading Canadian online financial services provider and fintech backed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is shining a light on one of the fastest-growing threats facing older Canadians: financial fraud. Canadians lost at least $704 million to fraud in 2025, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, and with only an estimated five to ten per cent of scams ever reported, the true toll is far higher. Older adults consistently report the largest losses of any age group, with fraud now considered the number one crime against older Canadians.
As Fig reviews thousands of loan applications, it has a unique window into how scams operate, including cases where scammers coach victims into applying for loans on their behalf. As part of its fraud prevention process, Fig proactively monitors for these warning signs and alerts borrowers before money changes hands. This is a pattern Fig sees firsthand with borrowers aged 65+ who represent approximately 66% of all scam cases identified and flagged.
Other Key Findings from Fig:
How Fig is Protecting Customers
To fight back, Fig developed Fig Shield, an in-house technology designed to protect applicants from scams. The tool looks for patterns that may indicate organized fraud is targeting someone, reducing the time spent manually searching for warning signs, and allowing Fig’s fraud team to intervene faster before money leaves a victim’s hands. You can view the Fraud Prevention Portal here.
Fig Shield is a proprietary machine learning model built on applicant behaviour. It identifies whether applicants fall into a known “scam cluster,” exhibiting behaviours typical of scam victims. These high-risk clusters represent as little as 8% of daily applications, but triggering Fig’s fraud team to review and intervene has significantly cut manual review time by surfacing potential victims and directing prevention efforts where they make the biggest impact.
How Law Enforcement is Helping
Law enforcement says this type of early detection is critical because recovery is often impossible.
David Coffey, Detective, Financial Crimes Unit with the Toronto Police Service.recently sat down on Fig’s brand-new podcast to discuss the growing threat of scams and financial crime in Canada, including the most common schemes targeting Canadians, from romance and investment scams to grandparent scams that prey directly on seniors – Scams, Fraud & Financial Crime.
Protecting Canadian Seniors from Financial Abuse
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, recognized by the United Nations on June 15, draws attention to the abuse and exploitation of older adults, with financial abuse among the most common and underreported forms. Learn more about how Fig Financial and Fig Shield can help at https://fig.ca and https://fig.ca/en/learn/fraud-prevention-portal.
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This entry was posted on June 15, 2026 at 8:27 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Fig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.