Make Banking Accessible for Blind and Partially Sighted People

By Andrew Law - Campaigns Manager, Thomas Pocklington Trust

Blind and partially sighted (BPS) people cannot access their personal finances equally and we're petitioning for a change.

Sign our petition now

Why is this a problem?

Comparebanks statistics show 70% of people in the UK bank online or by using apps. In comparison, RNIB research shows more than half of BPS people are dissatisfied with their provider and 22% cannot bank without help from another person.

Thomas Pocklington Trust believes the problem is twofold:

• Replacement of bank branches with new banking hubs, aims to give customers access to all high street providers in shared locations, but limit opportunities for face to face help from your preferred provider. BPS people value this, especially for help with the often difficult first step of registration for online services and will only be able to get human help on specific days.
• Combine this with increasingly inaccessible digital services. All too often, registration with apps, or for online accounts generally, demands vision, with tight security cited as the reason for making processes unusable. We see banking rapidly becoming less accessible for people with sight loss, just as ease of use seems to rise for many others. We can’t stress enough that this is both intolerable and directly at odds with the Equality Act 2010.

We call on regulators and household name providers to lead the way, respecting the Equality Act 2010, by:

• Designing apps and websites inclusively to make independent on-boarding accessible for BPS people. Relying on others, who might be complete strangers, just to register removes the privacy and autonomy afforded to others.
• Retain services like phonelines which are easy to use. These could even be tailored for minority groups, so they are fit for purpose but also much smaller, if business resources are a problem.
• We also seek collaboration on a UK accessible banking standard, covering all the above and for every provider to abide by and for the Financial Conduct Authority to endorse.

Why this matters now:

• There are new hubs shared by companies which limit face to face service from staff which reduce available assistance to BPS people.
• Account registrations demand vision, such as taking selfies or videos, or identifying the graphics that guard against bots, some of which do not work with assistive technology and cause BPS to lose their independence and rely on others.
• There are infrequent consultations and user testing with BPS people which could avoid faults with design and upgrades. Some are often downgrades for BPS people.

What do others have to say?

HyperJar , a fintech, is one of the organisations committed to learning how to best serve its BPS customers.

@Harrison McEwan, Principal Product Designer at HyperJar, explains:

“We reached out to Thomas Pocklington Trust to better understand user patterns, experiences, and hear suggestions from BPS people. Our visit to their offices led to a hugely insightful discussion on best practises and we are now reviewing the learnings and urge other banking and finance organisations to involve BPS people in their work.”

Mike Bell , Head of Public Affairs and Campaigns at Thomas Pocklington Trust advises:

“It’s not an equal society if BPS people are still relying on others to access their personal finances. We need to put pressure on the regulators to ensure that the needs of BPS people are considered from the design stage and kept at the forefront of upgrades and changes in access to personal finances.”

Call to Action

We understand banks are considering accessibility, but they are not moving fast enough. By signing the petition below, you are lending your voice to the industry to be better, equal and consistent so that BPS people do not get left behind with changes to personal banking and finances.

Make Banking Accessible

Sign our petition now