Matt Sherwen, Sherwen Studios
As in-person financial services become increasingly difficult to find on UK high streets, the switch to digital access has now become the “default” option for most people.
Online financial services are now so prevalent that 86% of adults in the UK use some form of online banking or remote banking and over 18million home insurance policies were purchased online in 2024.
However, there are concerns that the switch to digital-first access could cause significant problems for those who find it difficult to easily navigate online platforms.
There are 16 million adults in the UK registered disabled and the spending power of the so-called ‘purple pound’ is estimated to be £274billion. But too often, despite having significant sums of money to spend online, those individuals are being neglected by the financial services sector who are failing to invest in digital accessibility.
Digital accessibility is not just a buzz word.
Nor is it a niche audience demographic that needs to be catered for.
Instead, digital accessibility is about ensuring that all users are able to benefit from a premium experience, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.
Here are some practical tips to help financial services organisations improve their digital accessibility. These improvements will not only make your website easier to use for everyone, but it will demonstrate your commitment to providing inclusive services for all customers.
Check that your platform integrates with assistive technologies
Your most pressing priority is to ensure that your platform is fully integrated with assistive technologies. Screen readers, voice recognition software and alternative keyboards are just some of the assistive tools that your customers might be using.
If you are relying on third-party software or plugins, they need to be checked to ensure that any integration in your back-end system is complete. If there are any conflicts within the integration, it could impede their effectiveness, preventing users from having a positive online experience.
Is your keyboard navigation working effectively?
We’re used to being able to find what we need at the touch of a button or the push of a finger. But what if you needed to rely on keyboard navigation – would you feel confident you could open a bank account, examine different mortgage rates or buy an insurance policy using just a keypad?
You should routinely check your sales funnel to see how easy it is to examine different policy options, payment checkouts, calendars, and booking forms to see if they work well. If they cause any friction along the line, you risk losing that customer.
Make sure your content marketing teams think about accessibility
Financial organisations selling directly to the end consumer need to think carefully about their content marketing strategies. Customers may rely on additional hand-holding to guide them along the sales funnel. They may need time and space to research and understand what they are searching for.
When uploading content into your systems, you need to remind your marketing team of the importance of adding in alt tags and detailed image descriptions to any imagery. If you have invested in video footage, that video integration needs to have full keyboard control. Similarly, any spoken words (video or audio) must have detailed captions or a published written transcript to support users affected by hearing loss.
Are your design choices letting you down?
You might be surprised to learn that your design choices could be a key contributor towards your accessibility issues.
A visually attractive and user-friendly site is the dream of all consumer finance businesses, but useability shouldn’t be at the expense of accessibility.
We undertook our own research into this topic, and discovered that design choices are continually letting consumers down. Too many people are resorting to manually changing website background or text colour to improve readability.
Perhaps you have invested heavily into a new brand identity, but if your primary colour palette is full of reds and greens, it could cause issues for people affected by visual limitations, such as colour blindness. When Nationwide Building Society revealed their brand new corporate identity in 2023, they chose their new colour palette with accessibility in mind.
Another point to consider is your font choice. It’s not just about what looks good – it needs to be easily read by users affected by dyslexia or dyscalculia. If you can’t change your font, then simply adjusting your font size, line spacing and letter spacing can make a huge difference to the accessibility of your site.
Automation could prevent customers seeking help
You might be tempted to invest in chatbots and AI to filter your customer service enquiries, but it’s important to retain human oversight at all times. Making it easy for a customer to speak to a human representative is essential for your brand reputation, and for users with additional needs, it’s even more important.
Ideally, your customer service department should have a variety of options that suit users with different needs. For example, if you are offering live chat options, are the responses easy to read? Could you offer video chats that offer caption or translation services, or the opportunity for users to lip read? Are your feedback forms labelled correctly with identifying information and clear expectations of how much information needs to be provided? If your external chat window pops up, will they work with assistive technologies and can users easily revert back to the homepage without losing the chat?
It’s important to think about digital accessibility through a lens of customer service. You want to be able to help potentially vulnerable user groups benefit from a consistent and reliable service. Having access to an easy customer service representative could be essential to manage this.
Having a truly accessible website shouldn’t be complicated.
When handled correctly, not only will you be able to open your consumer finance business up to a much wider audience, but you’ll create a strong, reputation with long-lasting brand advocacy.
At Sherwen Studios, we’re here to help businesses improve their online platforms by focusing on digital accessibility. Our in-depth research paper, titled “Rethinking Accessibility for an Inclusive Digital Experience,” is a useful resource to help financial service teams examine how inclusive they really are.
Author Biography: Matt Sherwen owns Sherwen Studios, a creative, strategic and technology-driven consultancy. From website development to full omnichannel digital infrastructures, Sherwen Studios works with clients to help them understand how to evolve their digital presence.
