Liam O’Dell: Deaf people like me cannot bank on good financial services

Fully accessible financial services by 2020? I wouldn’t bank on it (sorry).

Joking aside, I read the news last week that Lloyds Bank will be the first UK organisation to offer British Sign Language (BSL) translation on its website for deaf customers, using the browser extension, Signly.

The new technology sees a BSL video pop up as an alternative to the text on the website. Avoiding the potential for large swathes of financial information – appearing in giant blocks of text – to be overwhelming for some customers using a banking service, especially for Deaf people for whom English isn’t their first language.

Miroslav Civin, a deaf customer who banks with Lloyds, sums up the benefits well in a video explaining the service: “When I first used the Lloyds website, it was full of text which I struggled to understand,” he says. “Now finally there’s BSL access and it’s wonderful to watch the BSL translation and fully understand the website.”

It is, without doubt, a monumental step in the right direction for making banking more accessible for deaf customers, but that’s not to say that there isn’t more that banks can do.

I’m sure I’ve said this in previous articles for The Limping Chicken, but I find myself as a bit of a middle man sometimes when it comes to my deafness.

Not only do I not quite identify as either deaf or Deaf, but as someone who is only mildly deaf, I find myself sandwiched between the deaf and hearing worlds as someone who communicates orally, but has a hearing loss and doesn’t use BSL as their first language.

As such, it’s often those like me, who find themselves in this sort of ‘middle ground’, which can be left out of access provision for deaf people.

This rather conveniently has a tie-in with a wider issue of representation, and how it’s important that the media and indeed wider society are appreciative of the fact that it’s not a case of ‘one size fits all’ with disability.

Of course, by no means am I disregarding BSL access or saying that it is not necessary – absolutely not – but it’s vital that organisations such as banks consider all types of deaf people when it comes to making their services accessible.

I say this as a deaf person who has used many banks over the years and a lot of them have directed me to use the telephone when dealing with matters relating to my account, forgetting of course that I struggle to hear on the phone.

I remember one instance where I was speaking to one bank about an issue, and no matter how many times I phrased it, or stressed how I couldn’t hear on the phone, I was advised to ring a number to discuss the matter further.

I’m not the only deaf person to experience this, either. I remember an article in The Guardian last year where a deaf woman, who was a victim of fraud, said she was forced to communicate over the phone with bank staff. As we see banking services become more and more technologically advanced, it’s essential that they address the communication barrier which their telephone-based approach creates.

I am keen, however, to suggest solutions when I use these articles to rant about my many bug bears, and like most instances of poor access, the answer is pretty straightforward.

I think of online text-based messaging services which some banks offer to message their support team. If there’s a concern over security, card reading devices which generate security codes are a good way of providing reassurance to staff that they’re talking to the customer in question.

Unfortunately, I get the sense that some banks are using ‘security concerns’ as an excuse for their services being inaccessible to deaf people, and I cannot settle for that.

So while I can celebrate the recent steps taken by banks to improve BSL access, I do so whilst also remembering that these services still have a long way to go before they can be considered completely deaf-friendly.

Photo by Ollie Cole.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and blogger from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.