This Fintech’s Visa Card Keeps Grandpa From Blowing His Nest Egg

True Link Financial offers a debit card with spending controls expressly designed for people with dementia, other cognitive deficits or addiction issues. It also manages special needs trusts.

_{By Lindsey Choo, Forbes Staff}

In November 2020, Alana Peralez received the sort of emergency call she’d been dreading. Her then 84-year-old dad, a retired aerospace engineer who’d lived alone in his Arizona house since her mom died in 2006, had suffered a stroke. After months of rehab in a nursing home and then a group home, he still had problems with mobility and completing complex tasks. So in April of 2021, they agreed he should move into an assisted living apartment complex near his old neighborhood and friends–a good housing option for someone who needs help with certain daily activities, such as cooking, or managing medicines, but values his independence and doesn’t need skilled nursing or constant supervision.

Peralez, a 42-year-old economic development specialist who lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, was now managing her dad’s finances, as well as his care, from a distance. Even before his stroke, she’d worried he was starting to fall for scams and junk products pitched by telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen. Now she wanted something akin to assisted living for his spending.