A major study from the University of Nottingham and Lloyds Banking Group has found that everyday banking behaviors could help identify early signs of cognitive decline in older adults—years before they are formally diagnosed or require legal support through a power of attorney (PoA).
Published in JAMA Network Open, the research analyzed anonymized financial data from over 66,000 people in the UK. The team compared two groups: 16,742 people who had registered for a PoA due to loss of financial capacity, and a control group of 50,226 individuals of similar age and background who had not.
The results were striking. Subtle changes in financial activity began to show as early as five to ten years before people were officially recognized as unable to manage their finances. These early signs included lower spending on travel and hobbies, fewer online banking logins, and more frequent mistakes such as losing cards or requesting PIN resets. People in the PoA group were:
- Nearly 10 percentage points less likely to spend money on travel five years before their PoA registration
- Almost 8 percentage points less likely to spend on hobbies such as gardening
- Logging into online banking one fewer time per month on average
- More likely to report fraud or need help resetting banking credentials
According to the researchers, these changes may reflect the early impact of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. In particular, people with cognitive decline may gradually stop participating in self-care or outside activities and instead spend more time at home. Alongside these shifts, they may begin making more financial errors or become more vulnerable to scams.
Professor John Gathergood, co-lead author from the University of Nottingham’s School of Economics, called the findings a breakthrough in understanding how everyday financial behavior can act as a warning signal.
“This is the first large-scale evidence that banking data can reveal the early signs of cognitive decline,” he said. “Used responsibly, this kind of data could help protect vulnerable people.”
While this study does not suggest banks should act as medical authorities, it opens the door to safer and more supportive financial systems. With proper privacy protections in place, patterns in financial activity could one day help trigger early alerts—not just for banks, but for family members and healthcare professionals, who could step in before financial harm occurs.
Another important takeaway from the study is the low public awareness around PoA registration. Many people wait until cognitive decline is obvious before setting up legal protections, but the research shows that behavioral signs begin much earlier.
This highlights a need for better education around the benefits of early PoA planning, especially as rates of dementia continue to rise.
The authors recommend further research into how financial institutions, healthcare systems, and social care providers could work together to monitor and respond to these early warning signs, always with strict safeguards to protect personal data.
In short, your everyday banking behavior—how often you log in, where you spend, and how you manage your accounts—could quietly reflect changes in brain health. This study offers hope that, in the future, these subtle clues could lead to earlier support and better outcomes for people facing cognitive decline.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about inflammation that may actually slow down cognitive decline in older people, and low vitamin D may speed up cognitive decline.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about common exercises that could protect against cognitive decline, and results showing that this MIND diet may protect your cognitive function, prevent dementia.
The research findings can be found in JAMA Network Open.
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