Big banks using small fonts are hurting their elderly customers

 by Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia

ING Bank appears, to me, to be knowingly disinterested and contemptuous towards elderly and vision impaired customers. ING Bank no longer uses raised numbers or black fonts, and no longer uses both sides of their visa cards, to display relevant banking numbers.

They have recently re-issued a visa card to an elderly person. The new card has extremely small white print on an orange background, which does not prvide enough contrast. The numbers are crammed, one under the other, on the back of the card while the front of the card is left blank.

The elderly person concerned now has difficulty reading the numbers out when ordering home delivered medication from their local pharmacist and cannot easily copy the numbers while ordering products online. They never have been able to easily read their client number, when making inquiries at the bank, because it has always been printed on the back of the card in extremely small white font. Now all the card numbers are written this way, one under the other under the other. 

Whereas previously, they were able to follow instructions like "the card number from the front of the card" and "the CVC from the back of the card", with all the numbers crammed one under the other, the different numbers are difficult to distinguish as well as being difficult to read. The bank's actions, in changing their visa cards, are knowingly ignorant and disinterested in the welfare and independence of their elderly and vision impaired clients.

Vision impaired people's organisations have done a lot of work to make some banking processes more accessible. It shouldn't be up to disability advocates to do reactive advocacy after a major product has been introduced. Disability access should be built into products, wherever reasonably possible, in the design stage. Disability accessiblity standards should be mandatory for banks, as essential services, and enforceable by law. 



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