The steps that banks take to prevent financial abuse of elders should be prescribed in the Code of Banking Practice and be legally binding, the Australian Law Reform Commission has recommended.The ALRC has issued a discussion paper, detailing the preliminary finding of its review of elder abuse, and one of its key findings is that banks and other financial institutions could do more to detect and prevent financial abuse of their customers.The ALRC identifies financial abuse is one of the most common types of elder abuse. Financial abuse of older people often involves misusing funds in a bank or other financial institution. Money may simply be withdrawn from an older person's account or used to pay someone else's bill without the account holder's permission.The ALRC said that the Code of Banking Practice should require banks to take "reasonable steps" to prevent financial abuse of older customers. The code should cover appropriate training of staff and use of systems to detect suspicious transactions.Reasonable steps might include providing educational material about abuse to older customers, setting up systems to identify abuse and, in some cases, reporting abuse to relevant authorities.There is currently an Australian Bankers Association guide to how banks might respond to elder abuse but it is voluntary and unenforceable. The ALRC would prefer to see the guidelines set out in the code, which would make them legally enforceable.The ALRC said a number of submissions recommended that banks should report elder abuse to a relevant authority. The ALRC did not take up this recommendation, instead saying that the decision to report suspected abuse would depend on the circumstances."The ALRC does not propose that banks be required to report all instances of suspected abuse to authorities, but rather that reporting abuse will sometimes be appropriate," it said.It recommended that people who report suspected abuse should be given immunity from certain legal obligations that might otherwise prevent then from reporting.It also recommended that the Code of Banking Practice should increase the witnessing requirements for arrangements that allow people to authorise third parties to access their bank accounts. For example, at least two people should witness the customer signing the form giving authorisation.