A U.S. Congressional committee has given the go ahead to legislation that would enable financial firms to help protect senior clients from possible exploitation.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved a bipartisan bill, known as the Senior $afe Act of 2016, which aims to enable financial industry firms and reps to report suspected abuse of senior clients. The bill will now move on to the full House of Representatives for consideration by lawmakers.

President of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), Judith Shaw, said “This legislation, and similar legislation in the Senate … will better protect people aged 65 and over by increasing the likelihood that financial exploitation targeting them will be identified by trained financial services professionals, and by removing barriers that might otherwise frustrate the reporting of such exploitation to state securities regulators and other appropriate governmental authorities.”

Industry trade group, the U.S. Securities and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), also came out in favour of the bill. “We applaud the House Financial Services Committee for today’s passage of the Senior $afe Act, which will allow firms to disclose cases of potential senior financial exploitation without the fear of legal ramifications. This type of legislation, paired with collaboration within the industry and beyond, allows us to tackle elder financial abuse head-on,” says Kenneth Bentsen, Jr., president and CEO of SIFMA, in a statement.

Bentsen Jr. adds that elder abuse is an issue that the financial industry takes seriously, but that it’s not something that the industry can solve alone.

“We are partnering with lawmakers, regulators, medical experts, and advocates to better understand the issues involving financial exploitation and cognitive decline and to implement practices to address the risks,” he says.