Understanding the Impact of Digital Inclusion in FinTech Industry
Accessibility refers to equal access for everyone, regardless of their abilities or traits. It refers to how organizations recognize and respect each inspanidual’s peculiarities, including both visible and invisible disabilities. It is all about ensuring that the interests of all are taken into consideration and promoting a disabled-people-friendly environment.
Accessible Internet defines online services that can be used without restriction by anyone, regardless of physical or technical ability, including people with behavioral or emotional disabilities, sensory impaired disorders, or age-related limitations.
The COVID crisis has skyrocketed the shift towards digital financial services. By 2024, Statista estimates that the FinTech sector will have raised in value as much as €188 billion.
What Is Digital Inclusion?
To put it simply, inclusion is the process of including all citizens in society. And, above all, those with physical or mental disabilities. It involves the development and application of methods that will allow everyone to participate equally in public life.
What could be possible ways to make fintech solutions more accessible? These digital solutions should comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure accessibility for all users. The first version was introduced in 1999 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in collaboration with other institutions. It proved to be a game-changing global set of standards providing a framework for designing and developing accessible websites. According to the main four WCAG principles, web services should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
Legal Requirements: International Experience
Adopting policies that provide access to financial services by governments paves the way for corporate sector representatives to develop innovative solutions, formulated for specific use cases.
Legal requirements aim to align different standards and reduce barriers for developers of products and services to provide equal access to the elderly and disabled.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE)
A federal law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been advocated in the UAE. Emirates NBD bank has imparted disability equality training to over 2,100 of its staff and taught them American sign language. The bank’s disability-friendly branch project, implemented in 2016, aims to facilitate and ease the banking experience. The three-phase transformation integrates infrastructure, technology, and services to enable and enhance accessibility.
Canada
AODA or Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act takes into account accessibility for the disabled citizens of Ontario province. This Canadian law was introduced in 2005 and it has established an accessibility standard for both public and private organizations. Under the requirements of this standard, all public and private organizations should be accessible to anyone with physical or cognitive disabilities. This includes digital accessibility for websites, apps, and other web content. The goal of the AODA is to make Ontario accessible for people with disabilities by 2025.
The United States of America (USA)
There are numerous specific regulations requiring physical modifications in facilities open to the public to accommodate inspaniduals with impairments. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has expanded well beyond physical spaces into the digital space, websites, mobile applications, kiosks, POS devices, and other technology. However, no mandatory regulations exist for digital technology like the ADA regulations for physical spaces.
Europe
The Web Accessibility Directive (WAD) provides equal access to websites and mobile apps of public services for users of all abilities and complies with WCAG 2.1.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is in the beginning stages of development, as it was only officially adopted by the EU in 2019. Member states have a timeframe in which to implement all the required changes: July 28, 2025.
EAA and WAD focus on different sectors and cover different types of digital products. EAA extends the focus beyond web and mobile applications to a broader range of digital products, including, but not limited to, terminals, ATMs, and services and products within the transportation sector, such as ticketing machines.
Why FinTech Can Win at Accessibility?
Identifying strategies to assist with adaptation and creating accessible digital products is becoming increasingly vital. The first UNICEF Global Report on Assistive Technology reveals that 2,5 billion people in need of assistive technology are denied access: children & adults with disabilities & older persons. New digital fintech products may only be deemed effective if they are open to all users, with 20% of the population needing assistive technology. And it’s a growing segment of the US and global population. Ignoring 20% of the market is not a good strategy for business.
The best way not to put accessibility issues at the bottom of the pile and become a leader in digital inclusion is to collect disabled people's feedback on the product/service and, thus, help to improve the efficiency of using the application. To help you reach a wider audience and conform with requirements invest in hiring a dedicated, accessibility-focused, and experienced software development team.
Latest Contributions to Accessibility
Starting with May 2022, Google has introduced relevant accessibility tags (a11y) for the PlayStore app. That helps to make it easier for users with special needs to search for accessible applications.
MasterCard with its Touch Card for persons with visual impairments proves to be a role model in breaking down crucial accessibility barriers that can even lead to financial inclusion.
Another good example is a new generation of the electronic payment system (EPS), which operates based on the international standard ISO 20022. This will help to further automate and speed up the processing of payment transactions, and improve the level of service for EPS participants and their customers 24/7. As payments are a central facet of everyone's lives and financial well-being, this will be an essential contribution to barrier-free experiences and ensuring inclusion.
How Technologies Make Financial Services Accessible
Much of fintech institutions' progress in improving accessibility will depend on how well they embrace emerging technologies and apply spanerse available tools. Intuitive, personalized products can prove to be valuable for disabled persons’ financial independence.
Customer-oriented financial service providers or product owners should consider the following must-have options to make them more accessible:
Customization Settings
The use of mobile banking has led to the creation of user interfaces that are simple to present the most important information in a user-friendly way. But there won't be a one-size-fits-all approach to accessibility features. Allowing users to take control and change settings would be the most simple way to consider everyone’s interests. This may include but is not limited to adjustable options like text size, font, invert, contrast, grayscale, color, and filters. For example, if your software uses a serif font, give people with dyslexia the option of a font like OpenDyslexic, which is specifically designed for people with dyslexia.
AI and Chat Bots
Artificial intelligence and chatbots are bridging the information gap by helping users navigate banking tasks through conversational interfaces. Chatbots offer an opportunity to attend to customers’ concerns immediately by implementing labeling buttons correctly, ensuring sufficient color contrast, providing a proper keyboard focus, and easy navigation. The same guidelines should be applied to the chatbots as to mobile applications or websites.
Contactless Payments
Contactless payments allow product users to interact with more familiar devices like accessible smartphones not only in brick-and-mortar stores but also at ATMs.
Text-to-Speech or Voice-Enabled
Text-to-speech or voice-enabled digital processes based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) have a profound impact on accessibility for people with sensory impairments.
Audio Transcripts
An audio file on the product can be transcripted. This will ensure that people with hearing impairments can access the content and enjoy the same benefits.
Adaptive Keyboards and Alternative Input Devices
Persons, who find it difficult to navigate with a mouse, should be provided with the keyboard functionality, so they can easily navigate the product using their keyboard instead.
A braille keyboard would perfectly assist blind persons and those with visual impairments. In case, it’s complicated to connect an external device, a built-in braille keyboard would help type on your phone without additional hardware.
Disabled persons are also offered mouse alternatives and accessible buttons.
Consistency and Predictability
When developing your product, consider all groups of people with different disabilities, so that don't focus on just one. Besides physical and intellectual impairments, there are people affected by anxiety disorders. That is the most common mental illness in the USA with over 18% of the population suffering from panic, depression, cognitive conditions, etc.
How people with anxiety disorders experience digital content can be directly affected by design concepts. The consistent navigation, structured images, videos, links, and other inspanidual elements, and the same basic layout make the user interface predictable, enabling users to quickly locate information and interact with the site or web app in a natural way. That would help to not trigger symptoms for some people with anxiety. You still can make your unique design, but the main functions won't change from page to page. Descriptive headings, avoiding creating not required time limitations would also prevent frustration for all types of users. Fortunately, guidelines described in the WACG aren’t intended to help one particular group of people with impairments and provide outlines for creating reasonably accessible content for the whole audience.
Final Thoughts
Users with disabilities likely use digital fintech products in a way nobody else could consider. What can we do to tackle the challenges of the most vulnerable members of society? Why wouldn’t an accessibility-first strategy become a new modern norm for financial institutions?
NetLS provides software development services for fintech companies and financial institutions to help them meet requirements for digital inclusivity promotion.
Contact our experts to get consultations on the latest assistive technologies and develop a unique accessibility strategy for your fintech product.