Data + Dementia
Major Financial Institution
Project Overview
Long before a clinical diagnosis, the early signals of cognitive decline appear in everyday banking: missed bills, mistakes at ATMs, sudden changes in spending.
A major financial institution held that data, and held a question. Not whether to use it, but how to use it without violating the dignity of the people it would identify.
I was executive producer, across the first hypothesis of the idea, the independent research, the ethical framework, and the alignment discussions across risk, data, legal and customer teams. The technology was never the difficulty. Our difficulty was deciding what a bank has the right to notice.
Final Outcome
The project reframed the institution's own question: from how to protect the bank from vulnerable customers, to how to protect vulnerable customers using what the bank already knows.
It stayed internal, and so did its value. The institution gained validated evidence that everyday banking behaviour can flag early cognitive decline, confirmed through independent university research, and a tested framework for acting on that signal within the legal, privacy and dignity lines a regulated business cannot cross. Four teams that rarely agree aligned on a single position on responsible use.
The result was a de-risked, board-ready capability, waiting on a decision, not a discovery.