1. Our Commitment
At ABC Bank Plc, we are firmly committed to digital accessibility and to ensuring that our banking products, services, websites, and mobile applications are usable by all people, including individuals with disabilities. We believe that financial services should be accessible, inclusive, and equitable, and that no person should be excluded from participating fully in modern banking life due to a disability, impairment, or long-term health condition. This commitment applies across every touchpoint of our customer journey, from our public-facing marketing website and online banking platform, through our mobile banking applications and self-service telephone banking, to our in-branch experience and the accessibility of our physical premises.
We recognise that digital accessibility is not a one-time project but an ongoing, iterative process of continuous improvement, refinement, and learning. Accessibility is embedded throughout our organisation: it is a standing agenda item at senior leadership meetings, it is integrated into our procurement processes and supplier management, it forms part of our employee onboarding and training programmes, and it is a core requirement built into the design, development, testing, and deployment lifecycle of every digital product and service we deliver to our customers.
We understand that our customers have a diverse range of abilities, needs, and preferences, and that accessibility encompasses a wide spectrum of permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities — including visual impairments (such as blindness, low vision, and colour blindness), hearing impairments (such as deafness and hard of hearing), motor and mobility impairments (such as limited fine motor control, tremors, and upper-limb amputation or difference), cognitive and neurological disabilities (such as dyslexia, autism spectrum conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and acquired brain injuries), and mental health conditions. We design our digital channels with the principles of universal design and inclusive design at their core, seeking to build solutions that work well for the widest possible range of people without the need for specialised adaptation.
This Accessibility Statement sets out our approach to accessibility, the standards we aspire to meet, the measures we have already taken, the known limitations that exist and the practical workarounds that are available, how you can report accessibility issues to us, the support we offer to customers who use assistive technologies, and how you can get in touch with our dedicated accessibility team. We view this statement as a living document, and we commit to updating it on a regular basis to reflect our progress, to document new accessibility improvements, and to be transparent about the areas where we know we still have work to do.
We welcome and actively encourage feedback from all our customers, particularly those with disabilities, about any aspect of our accessibility. Your lived experience is invaluable in helping us to identify barriers that we may not have discovered through automated testing or internal audits, and in guiding us to prioritise the accessibility improvements that will deliver the greatest real-world benefit to our users. Please do not hesitate to contact our accessibility team using the details provided in Section 9 of this statement.
2. Standards We Aim to Meet
Our target accessibility standard for all our public-facing and internal customer-facing digital channels — including our main corporate website, online banking web application, native iOS and Android mobile banking applications, secure customer messaging portal, and online product application journeys — is conformance with Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, as published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and formally recognised as the British and European Standard BS EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) and as the UK government's endorsed standard for public and private sector digital accessibility.
About WCAG 2.2 Level AA
WCAG 2.2 is the most recent, most comprehensive, and most widely recognised international standard for digital accessibility. It is built on four foundational principles, often referred to by the acronym POUR, which require that digital content and interfaces be:
Perceivable
Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive — meaning that content cannot be invisible to all of a user's senses. This includes providing text alternatives for non-text content, captions and alternatives for audio and video content, creating content that can be presented in different ways without losing meaning, and making it easier for users to see and hear content, including separating foreground from background with sufficient contrast.
Operable
User interface components and navigation must be operable — meaning that users must be able to operate the interface using a variety of input methods and that the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform. This includes making all functionality available from a keyboard, giving users enough time to read and use content, not designing content in a way that is known to cause seizures and physical reactions, and helping users navigate and find content.
Understandable
Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable — meaning that users must be able to understand the content and how the interface works. This includes making text readable and understandable, making content appear and operate in predictable ways, and helping users avoid and correct mistakes by providing clear guidance and error recovery mechanisms.
Robust
Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice recognition software, and alternative input devices — meaning that content must be compatible with current and future tools. This includes maximising compatibility with current and future user agents and assistive technologies by using valid, semantic markup and by providing sufficient information in programmatically determinable form.
WCAG 2.2 defines three levels of conformance — Level A (the minimum baseline), Level AA (the internationally recognised standard for general accessibility and the level required by law for many organisations in the UK and EU under the European Accessibility Act and the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018), and Level AAA (the highest and most aspirational level, which is not typically required by law but which we strive to meet for selected criteria where it provides tangible additional benefit to our users). It is our stated policy to meet all Level A and Level AA Success Criteria across our digital channels, and to adopt Level AA Success Criteria as the minimum accessibility requirement for all new digital products, features, and content.
In addition to WCAG 2.2 Level AA, we also reference and align our work with a number of complementary accessibility standards, guidelines, and best practices, including: the W3C Mobile Accessibility Best Practices; the iOS Accessibility Programming Guide and Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) Accessibility principles published by Apple; the Android Accessibility Developer Guide and Material Design Accessibility guidelines published by Google; the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) Service Manual and the GOV.UK Accessibility Guidance; and the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, which explicitly includes accessibility as a core dimension of fair treatment.
Where WCAG 2.2 is silent on a particular accessibility consideration that is relevant to our users — such as the accessibility of PDF documents, the handling of in-page dynamic content updates, or the ergonomics of accessible authentication flows — we apply the principles of POUR in good faith and look to established best practice guidance from leading accessibility practitioners and organisations, including the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC), and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB).
We also commit to conforming with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 in the United Kingdom, which places a legal duty on service providers and employers to make reasonable adjustments to avoid disabled people being placed at a substantial disadvantage in accessing goods, facilities, and services, including digital services. Our accessibility programme is designed to systematically identify and remove such barriers, and where complete barrier removal is not immediately achievable, to put in place reasonable alternative methods of accessing the service so that no customer is excluded.
3. Measures We've Taken
Delivering on our accessibility commitment requires a holistic, organisation-wide programme that spans people, process, and technology. Over recent years, we have invested significantly in a broad range of measures to embed accessibility throughout our digital product and service delivery lifecycle, and to support our customers with disabilities. The following is a non-exhaustive summary of the key measures we have implemented to date, organised by theme, to improve the accessibility of our digital channels and our broader customer experience.
- We have adopted a component-based design system that includes fully accessible, reusable UI components — including buttons, form fields, error messages, modals, navigation menus, date pickers, and tables — each accompanied by detailed accessibility specifications covering ARIA attributes, keyboard interaction patterns, focus management, colour contrast ratios, and screen reader announcement behaviour. All components have been audited by independent accessibility specialists before being included in the design system.
- Accessibility is considered from the very earliest stages of product design, and all new feature designs are subject to mandatory accessibility review by our in-house accessibility specialists before they move into development. We use inclusive design workshops, persona-based design, and disability-led user research to anticipate and design for diverse user needs.
- All front-end and full-stack engineers working on customer-facing digital products are required to complete a comprehensive accessibility training curriculum, including role-specific training for developers on WCAG 2.2 implementation and accessible coding patterns for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and React Native. Refresher training and new-release briefings are conducted on an ongoing basis.
- We maintain an internal Accessibility Engineering Playbook that provides detailed, technology-specific implementation guidance and code examples for common UI patterns, and that is continuously updated as new accessibility issues are identified and resolved.
- All customer-facing web and mobile releases are subject to a multi-layered accessibility testing approach, combining automated static analysis and linting (using tools such as axe-core, WAVE, ESLint with the eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y plugin, and SonarQube with accessibility rules enabled) that runs in our continuous integration pipelines on every code commit, catching common issues such as missing alt text, missing labels, poor colour contrast, and invalid ARIA before code reaches production.
- We conduct detailed manual accessibility testing for all major user journeys, carried out by trained accessibility QA specialists using assistive technology setups including NVDA and JAWS screen readers on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, TalkBack on Android, ZoomText magnification software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition, and keyboard-only navigation.
- At least annually, we engage an independent, UK-based third-party accessibility auditor accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to conduct a full, formal WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance audit of our primary digital channels. The auditor's report, including both the identified non-conformances and our resulting remediation plan, is reviewed by our senior leadership team and is used to inform our accessibility roadmap for the following year.
- In addition to internal and third-party testing, we run an ongoing usability testing programme with panels of disabled users recruited through specialist accessibility research agencies, covering a wide range of impairments and assistive technology combinations. Findings from these sessions are prioritised in our product backlog alongside other customer-reported issues.
- Our website and online banking platform support native browser text resizing up to at least 200% zoom without causing content overlap, horizontal scrolling, or loss of functionality, and we avoid the use of fixed-size text units where possible to ensure that user-defined font size preferences are respected. We also support the use of browser-level "reader view" modes to simplify reading of long-form content such as this Accessibility Statement.
- We have implemented an in-page accessibility widget (available via the wheelchair icon that appears on every page of our public website) that allows users to adjust contrast levels, increase text size, enable a reading guide, highlight links and headings, switch to a dyslexia-friendly typeface, and navigate directly to accessibility settings — all without requiring any external browser extension.
- All essential content and functionality is fully operable using a keyboard alone, with a logical, predictable tab order, clearly visible focus indicators on all interactive elements, and no "keyboard traps" that would prevent a keyboard user from navigating out of a component. Skip links are provided at the very top of each page to allow keyboard and screen reader users to jump directly to the main content, navigation, and search areas.
- All images, icons, charts, infographics, and other non-text content that conveys meaning is provided with appropriate text alternatives (alt text) that convey the equivalent purpose and information, while purely decorative images are marked as such to be ignored by assistive technologies. Complex data visualisations are accompanied by data tables presenting the equivalent information in text form.
- All user-facing video content hosted on our channels is provided with synchronised captions (subtitles) for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and for important marketing and explanatory videos we also provide audio descriptions and written transcripts.
- All forms — including account application forms, secure messages, and transaction input — are provided with programmatically associated labels, clear error identification with descriptive error messages, and suggestions for correcting input errors, and form inputs are grouped logically using semantic fieldsets and legends.
- We have established a central Accessibility Steering Group, chaired at executive director level and with representation from product, engineering, design, customer operations, compliance, legal, and marketing teams, which meets quarterly to oversee our accessibility strategy, review progress against our accessibility roadmap, and ensure that senior-level sponsorship and accountability is maintained across the business.
- We have a dedicated, specialist Accessibility Team — including in-house accessibility engineers, accessibility designers, and an accessibility subject-matter specialist in our customer support organisation — who act as a centre of expertise and are available to advise project teams on all accessibility-related matters, to review designs and code, and to engage with customers who report accessibility issues.
- Accessibility is embedded in our third-party procurement and vendor management processes. We require all suppliers of customer-facing digital products and services (including hosted platforms, content management systems, document generation services, and payment gateway providers) to demonstrate compliance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA and to provide evidence of independent accessibility audits prior to contracting, and accessibility requirements are written into all new third-party contracts and service agreements.
- All customer-facing staff in our contact centres, branches, and digital support teams receive disability awareness and inclusive communication training, including guidance on supporting customers with a wide range of disabilities, on adjusting communication style to meet individual customer needs, and on signposting customers to our dedicated accessibility support channels where appropriate.
This list of measures is by no means exhaustive, and we continue to invest in our accessibility programme. Our forward-looking accessibility roadmap includes plans for enhanced dyslexia support, the roll-out of real-time sign language video support in branches and customer contact, ongoing improvements to the accessibility of our mobile applications, and a programme to remediate the accessibility of all our back-catalogue of PDF statements and other customer documents.
4. Known Limitations & Workarounds
While we are committed to full conformance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA, we are transparent about the fact that there are currently some areas of our digital channels where accessibility limitations remain. Many of these are being actively worked on as part of our ongoing accessibility programme, and we aim to remediate them as quickly as reasonably practicable. Where limitations do exist, we strive to document them clearly in this section and to provide practical, tested workarounds that disabled users can use to complete their task through an alternative route. If you encounter a barrier that is not listed here, please report it to us using the details in Section 5 — we depend on your feedback to build a complete picture of the issues our users face.
| Area / Journey | Known Limitation | Severity | Workaround & Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Secure Document Download (PDF Statements & Letters) | Some of our older, legacy PDF statements and customer correspondence documents — particularly those generated prior to the introduction of our accessible PDF template in 2023 — are not fully tagged for accessibility. These documents may lack proper document structure tags, alternative text for images and graphs, document metadata, logical reading order, or bookmarks, making them difficult or impossible to read using assistive technologies such as screen readers and text-to-speech software. | Medium | Workaround: All statements and correspondence are available in HTML format within the online banking and mobile banking document section, which is fully screen-reader accessible. If you require a specific document in an alternative accessible format such as large-print, plain text, or audio, please contact our accessibility support team who can typically convert and send you the document within two working days. Status: An automated accessible PDF generation engine has been rolled out for all new documents since Q1 2024. A back-catalogue remediation programme is in progress to re-generate all historical documents with proper accessibility tagging, targeted for completion by Q4 2025. |
| Investments Portfolio Chart Explorer (Online Banking) | The interactive performance charting and data visualisation components on our investments dashboard — including the interactive line charts, pie charts, and stacked bar charts used to display portfolio performance over time and asset allocation — have limited screen reader support. While summary data is available in text form, some of the more granular interactive exploration features (such as hover-over tooltips showing daily values and the ability to drag to zoom into a date range) are not accessible via keyboard or screen reader, as they rely heavily on pointer and mouse interaction. | Medium | Workaround: Every chart on the investments dashboard has an adjacent "View data as table" toggle that, when activated, replaces the chart with an accessible, properly-structured data table containing all of the same underlying numerical data, complete with column and row headers and caption. All portfolio data is also available for download as CSV, which can be imported into any spreadsheet package. Status: We are in the process of replacing our legacy charting library with a fully accessible alternative that supports WCAG 2.2 compliant keyboard interaction and ARIA live region announcements. Remediation is scheduled for completion by Q2 2025. |
| Mortgage & Loan Application Multi-step Forms | In a small number of our longer, multi-step application journeys (notably the full remortgage application flow and the business loan application form), some dynamic fields that appear or change based on the user's previous answers do not reliably trigger screen reader announcements when they become visible. This may result in screen reader users being unaware that additional fields have appeared on the page, or that guidance text has been updated in response to their selection. | High | Workaround: The same application journeys are available to be completed over the telephone with a trained customer advisor, who can guide you step-by-step through the process and complete the form on your behalf. Alternatively, you can request a paper-based application pack or accessible Word document version of the form by contacting the accessibility team. Status: A fix implementing proper ARIA live region announcements and focus management for all conditional fields is currently in user acceptance testing and is scheduled for production release in Q1 2025. |
| Mobile Banking Application — Android TalkBack Focus Order (Certain Screens) | On a small number of less-frequently used screens within our Android mobile banking application — specifically, the detailed foreign exchange rate screen and the internal payee management screen — the order in which TalkBack focus moves through the interactive elements when swiping does not match the logical visual reading order of the screen. This is caused by the underlying layout XML using nested containers that do not preserve the intended accessibility traversal order. | Low | Workaround: All information and actions available on these screens are also available via the equivalent screens in the online banking web application, which has been audited and verified to have correct focus order. Within the Android app, users can navigate by direct touch exploration (tapping the element you wish to interact with) rather than linear swipe to access elements out of order, and all fields remain individually operable. Status: This issue has been resolved in our internal development builds by explicitly defining the accessibility traversal order for these screens. The fix will be included in the next major release of the Android application, scheduled for February 2025. |
| Embedded Third-Party Video Players (Marketing Content) | Some marketing pages on our public website embed promotional video content hosted on third-party video platforms. While we enable captions and player accessibility features where available, we cannot guarantee that every aspect of the third-party video player itself fully meets our accessibility standards. In particular, the custom control panels of some embedded players may present challenges for certain screen reader and keyboard configurations. | Low | Workaround: For every video that we embed, we provide a full written transcript immediately below the video player, which contains all dialogue, on-screen text, and a description of important visual scenes. Where available, we also link directly to the video on the host platform where the user can take advantage of the platform's own built-in accessibility features. Status: We are moving our hosted video content to a platform with an independently-audited WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformant player, to be completed by Q3 2025. |
The limitations described above represent the known, documented accessibility barriers across our primary digital channels at the date of publication of this statement. However, given the complexity and constant evolution of modern web and mobile applications, it is possible that other accessibility issues may exist that we have not yet identified or that may have been introduced in recent releases. If you encounter any barrier that prevents you from accessing or using any part of our services, please do not assume that it is a known limitation — we want to hear from you, as every report helps us to improve.
For any issue, known or unknown, if you are unable to complete your intended task through our digital channels, please remember that all of our core banking services and products are also available through alternative channels, including our telephone banking service (staffed 24/7 for urgent queries and during business hours for general enquiries), in person at any of our high-street branches, or by written correspondence to our customer service centre. We commit to making reasonable adjustments to ensure that you can access the same services through an alternative channel at no additional cost to you.
5. How to Report Issues
We depend on feedback from our users to continuously improve the accessibility of our digital channels. If you encounter any difficulty, barrier, or issue when using our website, online banking, mobile applications, or any other digital service — or if you have any suggestions for how we could make our services more accessible — please let us know. Every accessibility report we receive is taken seriously, is logged and triaged by our dedicated accessibility team, and is responded to personally by a member of our team who has specialist accessibility training.
When you report an accessibility issue to us, to help us diagnose and resolve the problem as quickly and effectively as possible, we would appreciate it if you could include the following information in your report (where you are able to do so without difficulty): the URL of the page or the name of the screen in the mobile app where you encountered the issue; a brief description of what you were trying to do, what you expected to happen, and what actually happened; the assistive technology you were using (including the name and version number of any screen reader, magnification software, voice control tool, or alternative input device); the browser name and version or mobile operating system version you were running; and, if you are comfortable sharing it, a screenshot or screen recording that demonstrates the issue.
Dedicated Accessibility Reporting Channels
Telephone & Text Relay
Please refer to our contact page for telephone numbers
Text Relay UK / RNID Typetalk welcomed via 18001
Post or In-Person
Visit any branch and ask to speak with the Branch Accessibility Champion, or write to:
100 King Street, London EC2V 8AH, United Kingdom
FAO: Customer Accessibility Team
Our Response Commitment
- We will acknowledge receipt of your accessibility report within two working days of receiving it, using your preferred method of communication (or, if you have not expressed a preference, using the same channel through which the report was submitted).
- Within five working days of receipt, our accessibility team will triage your report, confirm whether the issue can be reproduced, and provide you with an initial assessment of severity and our intended next steps, including a realistic indication of the likely timescale for resolution, if applicable.
- For valid accessibility issues that we confirm and accept for remediation, we will provide you with a case reference number and will keep you updated on our progress at appropriate intervals until the issue is resolved. Once a fix has been deployed, we will write to you to confirm the resolution and to invite you to verify that the issue has been addressed to your satisfaction.
- If we determine that the reported behaviour is intended functionality or is outside the scope of our current accessibility roadmap, we will explain our reasoning clearly and will, wherever possible, discuss reasonable alternative workarounds or alternative service channels with you.
- All feedback and reports are also shared with our Accessibility Steering Group on an aggregated, anonymised basis to inform ongoing improvements to our accessibility programme and to identify common patterns or systemic issues that require more fundamental changes.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your accessibility report, or if you believe we have not fulfilled our legal obligations in relation to accessibility, you may escalate your complaint through our formal customer complaints handling process, which is set out in our Complaints Policy and which offers access to the independent Financial Ombudsman Service if your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction within the prescribed timescales. Customers in England and Wales also have the right to refer accessibility issues relating to our public sector website and mobile applications to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and in Scotland to the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), and to make a formal complaint to the Cabinet Office's Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations where applicable.
6. Third-Party Content
Our digital channels include or embed content, features, components, and services provided by a number of third-party suppliers and partners, either to enable specific functionality or to enrich our customer experience. While we take active steps to ensure that our third-party suppliers meet our accessibility standards and contractual obligations, we acknowledge that there may be circumstances where content or functionality delivered by a third party may contain accessibility limitations that are outside of our direct control and that we are not able to remediate unilaterally. This section explains the categories of third-party content present on our channels, our approach to managing their accessibility, and your options if you encounter an accessibility barrier in third-party content.
Categories of Third-Party Content
- Embedded video and audio players: Hosted on third-party streaming and video platforms and embedded in our marketing pages, product guides, and help centre articles.
- Customer survey and feedback widgets: In-page pop-up surveys and feedback tools provided by third-party market research and experience management platforms.
- Social media content and widgets: Embedded social media feeds, share buttons, and follower counts from major social networks displayed on some of our public pages.
- Live chat and support widgets: Third-party customer support and live messaging platforms used to provide real-time customer service interactions on our website.
- Document preview and viewer components: Third-party PDF and document rendering libraries used to display statements and correspondence in the browser without requiring download.
- Analytics, cookie consent, and tag management scripts: Third-party JavaScript tags used for consent management, performance monitoring, aggregated analytics, and A/B testing.
- Payment authentication and 3D Secure components: Authentication screens and fraud-checking components served directly by card scheme providers and payment gateways during the checkout and payment authorisation process.
- Branch and ATM locator maps: Interactive map components provided by third-party mapping services to help customers find their nearest branch or free-to-use ATM.
Our approach to managing third-party accessibility is based on three pillars. First, pre-contractual due diligence: as described in Section 3, all new third-party suppliers of customer-facing digital content or components are required to provide evidence of independent WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance (or equivalent) before onboarding, and we include binding accessibility requirements and audit rights in all relevant contracts and service schedules. Second, integration testing: wherever feasible, we conduct our own accessibility testing of third-party components when they are first integrated into our channels, and we raise identified issues with the supplier for remediation, referencing the obligations in our contract. Third, ongoing monitoring and review: we maintain a register of all third-party components embedded in our channels, and we review their accessibility status on a regular basis, including by reviewing any updated accessibility statements, Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs), or audit reports published by the supplier.
Despite these measures, there may be occasions where accessibility issues are present in third-party content that cannot be resolved solely through changes on our side, either because the issue is inherent to the third-party provider's platform or because the supplier does not offer sufficient configuration or control options to enable us to fix it. In such cases, we will engage proactively with the supplier to request remediation, and where a fix is not forthcoming within a reasonable timeframe, we will evaluate alternative suppliers or alternative integration approaches. In the interim, we will always endeavour to provide a direct, first-party workaround or alternative channel for users to access the same information or complete the same task without relying on the problematic third-party component.
If you encounter an accessibility barrier in content or functionality that you believe is delivered by a third party, please still report it to us using the details in Section 5. Even if the underlying issue resides with a supplier, it is our responsibility as the service provider to ensure that you can access the service, and we will either work with our supplier to resolve the issue or, if that is not possible in a timely manner, put in place a direct workaround to ensure that you are not disadvantaged. Where appropriate, we will also raise a formal support ticket with the third-party provider and share details of your report with their accessibility team to help drive improvements in their platform.
7. Compatibility with Assistive Technologies
We design and test our digital channels to be compatible with a broad range of assistive technologies — the hardware and software tools that disabled people use to interact with computers, mobile devices, and digital content. The following sections summarise our approach to compatibility with the major categories of assistive technology, describe the specific combinations that we actively test against, and provide practical guidance and tips for users of each type of assistive technology when using our services.
Screen Readers
Screen readers are software applications that convert on-screen content into synthesised speech, refreshable Braille output, or both. Our web channels are developed and tested to be compatible with modern, standards-compliant screen readers using semantic HTML, WAI-ARIA, and proper document structure.
Actively Tested Combinations:
- NVDA (latest stable release) with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome on Windows 11
- JAWS (latest two major versions) with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge on Windows 11
- VoiceOver (latest macOS release) with Safari on macOS
- VoiceOver (latest iOS release) with Safari on iPhone and iPad
- TalkBack (latest Android release) with Google Chrome and our native Android app on supported devices
Known Tips & Notes:
All of our main user journeys have been designed and tested to work well with default screen reader verbosity settings. Skip links are provided at the top of every page, landmark regions are used throughout to demarcate page sections, and ARIA live regions are used to announce dynamic content changes such as form submission results and new secure messages. If you encounter a page that announces poorly with your preferred screen reader and browser combination, please report the specifics to our accessibility team as described in Section 5.
Screen Magnification & Low Vision Tools
Screen magnifiers enlarge portions of the screen and may also offer features such as colour inversion, cursor enhancement, and text smoothing. Our responsive design, layout flexibility, and adherence to WCAG reflow and contrast criteria are intended to ensure a good experience for magnification users.
Actively Tested Combinations:
- ZoomText Magnifier/Reader (latest release) on Windows 11 with 200% and 400% zoom levels
- Built-in Windows Magnifier with docked, full-screen, and lens modes
- Built-in macOS Zoom (full-screen and picture-in-picture) on the latest macOS release
- Browser zoom at 200% in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari with full page reflow
- High-contrast and inverted colour modes on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android
Known Tips & Notes:
Our content is designed to reflow without horizontal scrolling at 200% zoom on a 1280-pixel-wide viewport and above, in line with WCAG Success Criterion 1.4.10 Reflow. All text meets a minimum contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text against its background, in line with WCAG Level AA contrast requirements. If you require even higher contrast, our in-page accessibility widget (available via the wheelchair icon on every public page) provides an enhanced contrast mode that achieves 7:1 and above across the site.
Speech Recognition & Voice Control
Voice control tools allow users to control the entire computer or mobile device, dictate text, and activate controls using only their voice. Our adherence to standards such as correctly-named controls, unique accessible names, and logical document structure supports the effective operation of voice control software.
Actively Tested Combinations:
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking / Dragon Professional (latest release) on Windows 11
- Built-in Windows Voice Access and Windows Speech Recognition
- Built-in macOS Voice Control and Dictation on the latest macOS release
- Voice Control on the latest iOS and iPadOS releases
- Voice Access on the latest Android releases with Google Assistant integration
Known Tips & Notes:
All interactive controls on our pages are provided with unique, descriptive accessible names that match their visible labels as closely as possible, enabling Dragon and similar tools to reliably activate controls by speaking the visible label. Form fields have properly associated labels so that the "click text by voice" commands work reliably. If you find that a button, link, or field cannot be reliably activated by its spoken label, please let us know the exact label text and the page, and we will investigate the naming and ensure it is corrected.
Keyboard-Only & Alternative Input Devices
Many users with motor impairments browse the web using only a keyboard (typically via the Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, and Arrow keys) or alternative input devices such as switch access devices, mouth sticks, head pointers, on-screen keyboards, and trackballs — all of which typically emulate standard keyboard focus and activation events.
Actively Tested Combinations:
- Pure keyboard-only navigation using Tab / Shift+Tab / Arrow Keys / Enter / Escape on all major desktop browsers
- Windows On-Screen Keyboard and Sticky Keys, Filter Keys, and Toggle Keys Ease of Access features
- macOS Full Keyboard Access with all controls enabled
- Switch Control on iOS and iPadOS (auto-scanning and manual switching modes)
- Third-party alternative input devices emulating HID keyboard/mouse standards
Known Tips & Notes:
Skip to main content links are the very first focusable element on every page, enabling keyboard users to bypass repeated navigation. All interactive elements receive a clearly visible, high-contrast focus ring when focused, and the focus order follows the logical visual order of the page. There are no keyboard traps anywhere in our services — if you ever find that your focus becomes stuck inside a modal, dropdown, or widget, please treat this as a critical bug and report it to us immediately using the details in Section 5.
The assistive technology combinations listed above are those that we actively test against as part of our release process. However, we make every effort to adhere to published open standards such as HTML5, ARIA 1.2, and WCAG 2.2 rather than optimising for specific assistive technology implementations, which means that our channels should in principle work well with any standards-compliant assistive technology, including emerging tools and tools that are less widely used. If you use a different assistive technology that is not listed above and you encounter any compatibility issues, we would still very much like to hear from you.
Users who are Deaf or hard of hearing may also be interested to know that our telephone customer services are fully accessible via the UK Text Relay service (formerly RNID Typetalk). Simply dial 18001 before our customer services number and a relay assistant will join the call to facilitate voice-to-text and text-to-voice translation between you and our agent. We are also in the process of rolling out optional British Sign Language (BSL) video relay interpretation for certain customer-facing calls, with initial availability on our mortgage advice line from Q1 2025 and phased expansion to other teams throughout the year.
8. Changes to This Statement
This Accessibility Statement is a living document, and we will update it regularly to reflect the current state of accessibility across our digital channels, to document new improvements and accessibility features that we have introduced, to update the list of known limitations and workarounds as issues are remediated or new ones are identified, and to keep pace with changes in accessibility standards and our organisational accessibility policy. We reserve the right to amend this statement at any time and without prior individual notice to you.
Material changes to this statement — such as significant revisions to our target accessibility standards, substantive changes to our approach to accessibility, the addition or removal of major known limitations, or changes to our accessibility contact channels — will be brought to the attention of users by means of a prominent notice on the home page of our website for at least 30 days following publication. In addition, the date on which the statement was last updated will always be displayed at the top of this page, and where there have been meaningful changes since the previous version, a summary of the key updates will be provided below the main statement heading.
At least once every 12 months, and ideally more frequently, this statement will be formally reviewed and refreshed as part of our annual accessibility planning cycle, alongside the annual external accessibility audit described in Section 3. This review will be conducted by our Accessibility Steering Group with input from our in-house accessibility team, and will include a review of all accessibility issues reported by customers and users over the preceding year, an assessment of progress against our prior accessibility roadmap, and the publication of an updated roadmap and statement for the coming year.
A version history of previous iterations of this Accessibility Statement will be maintained and archived by our legal and compliance team. If you would like to receive a copy of any previous version of this statement, or if you would like to be notified by email whenever this statement is updated in the future, please contact our accessibility team using the details in Section 9 and we will be happy to add you to our accessibility updates distribution list or to send you the relevant archived version.
Nothing in this statement is intended to, nor shall, create any contractual right or other legal right on the part of any user or third party, except as may be expressly required by law. This statement is an aspirational and informational document reflecting our current accessibility commitments and practices, and is intended to supplement — not replace — our formal compliance with applicable legal obligations including the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, where applicable.
9. Contact About Accessibility
We are committed to providing excellent support to our customers with disabilities and to anyone who wishes to discuss accessibility with us. Whether you have a specific accessibility-related question, need help with using our services with a particular assistive technology, wish to request an accessible format of any of our documentation, want to give us general feedback about accessibility, or simply need more information about anything in this Accessibility Statement, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our specialist accessibility team through any of the channels listed below. We are always happy to discuss accessibility, to learn from your experience, and to explore how we can better serve you.
Accessibility Team Contact Details
Telephone
Refer to our contact page
Text Relay UK via 18001 fully supported
Post
100 King Street, London EC2V 8AH, United Kingdom
FAO: Customer Accessibility Team
In-Branch
Every branch has a named, trained Branch Accessibility Champion on duty during opening hours.
Just ask any colleague on arrival to be connected.
Requests for Accessible Formats
As part of our commitment to accessibility and to the reasonable adjustment obligations under the Equality Act 2010, we are pleased to provide any of our customer communications, product literature, terms and conditions, or other documentation in a range of alternative accessible formats — including but not limited to:
- Large print (typically 16pt or 18pt sans-serif on matt paper, high contrast)
- Braille (Grade 2 Uncontracted and Contracted, UK English standard)
- Plain text, tagged PDF, and structured Word document formats
- Audio formats (CD, USB, MP3 download, or DAISY Talking Book)
- British Sign Language (BSL) video versions of key explanatory materials
Requests for accessible formats can be made via any of the channels above, and in most cases will be fulfilled within 5 to 10 working days depending on the complexity and length of the document. There is no additional charge to customers for receiving documents in an accessible format.
Further Support from Regulators & Charities
In addition to our own accessibility support channels, there are a number of independent UK organisations that can provide advice, support, and information about digital accessibility and your rights as a disabled consumer of financial services, including the following:
- Financial Conduct Authority (FCA): Publishes guidance for firms on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, including those with disabilities — www.fca.org.uk
- Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC): The independent regulator for equality law in England, Scotland and Wales, with powers to investigate complaints about accessibility in services — www.equalityhumanrights.com
- RNID (Action on Hearing Loss): Charity supporting Deaf, hard of hearing and tinnitus people, with information on accessible communication and services — www.rnid.org.uk
- RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People): Charity supporting blind and partially sighted people, with an accessible technology advice service and consumer guidance — www.rnib.org.uk
- Scope: Disability equality charity supporting disabled people, with consumer advice on access to services — www.scope.org.uk
We close this statement with a sincere thank you to all of our customers, partners, and users who have provided us with accessibility feedback over the years. Your insights, your patience, and your willingness to share your lived experience of disability have been invaluable in driving forward the accessibility improvements we have made to date, and they will continue to guide our accessibility journey into the future. Accessibility is a team effort, and we are deeply grateful for your partnership in making ABC Bank Plc a truly inclusive place to bank.
If you have read this far and have any thoughts, suggestions, questions, or concerns about anything we have written here — whether positive or critical — please do get in touch. We are listening, and we are committed to doing better.