Serving the Whole Household: Family Banking Strategies for CFIs

As of 2025, AARP estimates that 63MM Americans — nearly 1 in 4 adults — are family caregivers. This number includes 59MM people caring for adults and 4MM caring for children. Nearly one-third, or 29%, support both children and adults.Community financial institutions (CFIs) often look to establish not only commercial banking relationships with their business customers, but also those customers’ personal banking relationships. It’s one way that CFIs grow commercial banking, and it’s important enough that bringing personal banking to a lender is often a condition for approving a business loan.In pursuing personal banking, financial institutions are on the right track. Expanding that approach to include connections between family members can help CFIs build even deeper relationships. They can grow deposits and customer bases, differentiate themselves from competitors, and also offer customers services that improve their lives.For CFIs, family banking is emerging as a practical strategy to grow deposits, deepen relationships, and reduce churn among high-value households. In many cases, financial decisions increasingly involve more than one member of a family.Two situations illustrate this shift. In one, parents help children learn to manage money and gradually introduce them to financial independence. In another, adult children or other relatives help older family members manage bills, monitor accounts, and guard against fraud.Designing products, permissions, and fraud controls that support both scenarios allows CFIs to serve entire households rather than individual account holders.Connecting Parents and Children FinanciallyParents typically give their children a growing amount of financial freedom as they mature. CFIs can help families as they go through this experience. By offering accounts for young people that include parental controls, banks can help parents guide their children toward making sound financial decisions, while also helping children learn to handle their own money and build relationships with a new generation of customers. Goal- or reward-based savings accounts are another possible offering for families. Many parents are concerned that their children become financially independent adults. On their side, young people want to save, but don’t or can’t necessarily follow through. A 2024 Bank of America survey found that 82% of Gen Z respondents have financial goals, but 57% don’t have enough emergency savings to cover three months of their expenses. Targeted incentives that reward customers for putting away money can provide the necessary motivation that successful savers need. CFIs could first market such incentives to families but find that other customer segments are also interested, providing additional avenues for deposit growth.Real-time fund transfers are a third way that CFIs can help families. Parents can use real-time transfers to help a college student in an emergency, send a regular allowance, or cover a bill at the bookstore. Consumers are accustomed to apps that let them move money instantly, and they expect to use this capability to make parenting easier.Caregiver Support in Banking SolutionsThe US has an aging population, with the US Census Bureau projecting that the number of Americans aged 65 and older will grow from 58MM today to 82MM by 2050. An estimated 102MM adults have a hand in managing a loved one’s finances as caregivers.  According to True Link Financial, caregivers are an attractive customer segment, reporting incomes that are 70% higher than those of non-caregivers. They are 35% more likely to have a net worth of more than $250K and three times more likely to have a business banking account. They are also ready to reward banks that help them in their caregiving relationships. Of those who currently use more than one financial institution, 70% of caregivers say they would consolidate accounts with one that supported their caregiving role. Nearly all — 97% — of those who find their financial institutions neutral, unhelpful, or very unhelpful would consider banking elsewhere.These caregivers try to maintain another person’s independence and dignity while also monitoring accounts for fraud, checking that bills are paid on time, and looking for unusual spending that might indicate a deeper problem. In some instances, the caregiver may need to settle that person’s estate. Along the way, they often find substantial friction in the form of banks that send fraud alerts to the account owner but not the caregiver, or try to force a binary choice between a caregiver completely taking over an account on the one hand and complete independence on the other. Joint accounts, power of attorney, conservatorships, and guardianships can be difficult or expensive to set up, involve a dependent person giving away too much power, or damage the relationship between family members. To take the best possible care of a dependent person, caregivers need CFIs to offer real-time fraud protections and other guardrails, as well as flexible, role-based permission for multiple family members to share account access.Regulators have increasingly encouraged financial institutions to strengthen protections for older adults, including through “trusted contact” designations and age‑friendly account features like alerts, read‑only access, and third‑party monitoring.  CFIs that offer caregiver-friendly tools — such as configurable alerts, view-only permissions, and trusted contact designations or similar third-party notification options — aren’t just supporting families. They are also aligning with growing expectations around elder-fraud prevention.Takeaways and Strategies for CFIs

By becoming a helpful partner rather than a stressful obstacle to customers who are taking care of younger or older generations, CFIs can reap substantial loyalty and expanded business from grateful caregivers.Caregivers are an attractive financial segment and are ready to reward banks that help them navigate the challenges of supporting adults, children, or both. Family banking services can help CFIs attract new customers and deepen existing relationships.