Why Banks Should Make Their Websites ADA Accessible

ADA Compliance Banking

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all aspects of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and telecommunications, and ensures their access to all public accommodations, including banks.

In the future, complete web accessibility will be the undisputed reality for all websites. The digital accessibility of banking is one of the areas where website accessibility has been an issue for people with specific disabilities. Consider being unable to do banking or access your finances digitally due to your disability. It can be extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, this is what many people with disabilities face daily. They are unable to benefit from the convenience of digital banking due to a lack of digital accessibility in banking. This is what the ADA seeks to prevent.

Why Digital Accessibility in Finance

Digital accessibility in finance or banking may not appear to be a significant issue, but given the recent trend of web accessibility lawsuits targeting the private sector, the finance and banking industry is not immune to the consequences of ADA non-compliance. In 2018, for example, approximately 7% of the 2,285 ADA accessibility lawsuits filed targeted the financial and banking industry. Even industry heavyweights like E*Trade and Morgan Stanley have received complaints about the accessibility of their websites, prompting them to implement remediation plans for financial ADA accessibility.

Aside from protecting yourself from lawsuits, it is important for you, as a player in the finance and banking sectors, to understand that if your website or mobile apps are inaccessible to certain segments of the population, you may lose business to entities that consider all of their potential clients.

Increased Online Banking

COVID-19 had a significant impact on the retail-banking sector. To maintain mainstream business and customer service continuity following the imposition of lockdowns, banks were forced to temporarily close their branches as well as migrate all of their operations to online banking. Employees of a bank were forced to work from home. To make this work, banks had to improve their online platforms so that services typically provided in-branch could be completed online. In addition to expanding online services to customers, banks had to invest in their IT departments to maintain online systems and ensure that they ran smoothly, especially given the increase in consumer online transactions and queries.

One of the most common mistakes banks have made when dealing with financial ADA accessibility issues is ignoring complaints or passing them on to someone else without ensuring that the concerns are addressed. Those who are unable to access online banking websites will frequently take one of two actions: they will either take their business to another institution who has considered and prioritized their needs, or they will contact you to let you know that your website is not meeting their needs. If you do nothing after becoming aware of these concerns, they may take their complaints to a lawyer and file a discrimination lawsuit against you… or they may just go straight to a lawyer and not bring their concerns to you first.

The goal of this article is to encourage you to take the time to respond to complaints about digital accessibility in banking in your enterprise and address them quickly and efficiently in order to keep your customers happy and reduce your chances of being sued.

Because of the risks that your customers face when conducting online banking, you must prioritize digital accessibility in banking. Due to the prevalence of fraud, failing to take digital accessibility in finance seriously may limit a customer with disabilities' ability to detect activity that may predispose them and their finances to fraud. You risk paying hefty fines if such violations occur and your customers with disabilities suffer financial losses as a result of your laxity in ensuring financial ADA accessibility.

Get Help Toward ADA Compliance Banking

The issues that threaten your financial and banking enterprise as a result of non-compliance with ADA compliance banking are numerous, and they have the potential to bring your financial and banking enterprise to its knees. Fraudsters are coming up with new ways to defraud your customers, and those with disabilities are particularly vulnerable.

If your online banking accessibility isn't airtight, for example, your disabled customers are at risk of being defrauded on a daily basis due to their inability to decode fraudulent activities and take appropriate mitigation steps.

You can get assistance with this conundrum by calling (626) 486-220 to speak with a digital accessibility expert in finance and banking, or by clicking here for more information on why banks should make their websites ADA accessible.