Towards Inclusive Banking: Implementing the EU Accessibility Act in Digital Banking Services

On June 28, 2025 comes into force the EU Accessibility Act. The aim of the EU Accessibility Act is to ensure that people with disabilities have better access to the key products and services across the EU member states, including consumer banking services. For banks it means that all their client-oriented services should comply with the guidelines listed in the EAA, and this article will walk you through requirements to make your bank services digitally accessible. What is the EU Accessibility Act? The European Accessibility Act is a directive of the European Union which took effect in April 2019 and must be implemented on the national level by the EU member states until June 28, 2025. The purpose of the upcoming regulation is to strengthen the rights of people with disabilities to participate in the community with others and to harmonise the EU market by removing and preventing barriers to the free movement of certain accessible products and services. The EU Accessibility Act covers a wide range of products and services, incl. e-commerce, public transportation, ATMs, audio-visual services, computer hardware systems, operating systems, consumer banking, etc., requiring them to comply with certain accessibility standards. What are the requirements of the EU Accessibility Act for consumer banking services? The EU Accessibility Act does not aim at imposing detailed technical compliance requirements, but rather at providing a set of general accessibility requirements for certain products and services. In addition, the regulation avoids imposing burdensome requirements on small companies as it is not applied to businesses with less than 10 employees and an annual turnover of less than two million euros. When it comes to consumer banking services, the EAA states that providers of services covered by the regulation must ensure that their services are accessible to people without/with limited vision, without perception of colour, without/with limited hearing, without vocal capability, with limited manipulation or strength, with limited reach, with limited cognition, and with photosensitivity. Providing services for maximum accessibility to people with disabilities includes giving information on service operation, product usage, accessibility features, and compatibility with assistive devices. This includes:

EU Accessibility Act Requirements

• providing information in multiple sensory channels
• supplementing non-textual content with alternatives
• ensuring information is understandable and perceivable
• making electronic information consistent and adequate for accessibility
• offering text formats for alternative assistive formats
• ensuring websites and mobile services are consistently accessible
• using suitable fonts, sizes, and contrast making information understandable

Additionally, it involves making websites, including the related online applications, and mobile device-based services, including mobile applications, accessible in a consistent and adequate way by making them perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Furthermore, where available, support services (help desks, call centres, technical support, relay services, and training services) providing information on the accessibility of the service and its compatibility with assistive technologies, in accessible modes of communication. Consumer banking services should additionally ensure providing identification methods, electronic signatures, security, and payment services which are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust; and ensuring that the information is understandable, without exceeding a level of complexity superior to level B2 (upper intermediate) of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Nevertheless, the EU Accessibility Act will not apply to time-based media and file formats of Office applications published before 28 June 2025, and to content of websites and mobile applications that are considered archives and whose content is archived and will not be updated or revised after 25 June 2025. Unfortunately, there is no information whether it is also applicable to PDF files in the EU Accessibility Act. The full list of general requirements can be found in Annex of the EU Accessibility Act, alongside with the examples of possible solutions that contribute to meeting the accessibility requirements in Annex 2. How can banks ensure digital accessibility for their consumers in line with the EU Accessibility Act requirements? As it has been mentioned earlier, the EU Accessibility Act does not give information on “How” to comply with the regulation, in other words, it does not provide any functional or any detailed technical solutions, which bring a challenge for banks. However, there are existing guidelines for digital accessibility which can be used as a reference. For example, many pieces of the EU Accessibility Act take inspiration from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and while the EU Accessibility Act does not name WCAG as a standard, its accessibility requirements for digital products are based on the same accessibility principles. Therefore, when it comes to digital accessibility, complying with WCAG is a potential solution to complying with the EU Accessibility Act.

How can Capmatix facilitate accessibility of your banking services?

Choosing Capmatix, a cutting-edge automation and regulatory compliance software solution for financial institutions, ensures your full compliance with the EU Accessibility Act across all digital content. From documents and reports to marketing materials, websites, and digital client advisories, we guarantee accessibility alignment with the upcoming EU Accessibility Act. With a proven track record, our regulatory expertise ensures 100% compliance with diverse regulations for more than 200 of our clients. Our document automation proficiency enables the seamless generation of thousands of documents, while our technical expertise empowers us to create and connect various digital content formats across all platforms and infrastructures. Moreover, our LPA Consulting division specializes in understanding your unique requirements and provide bespoke advice tailored to your organization, ensuring seamless compliance with the EU Accessibility Act. Contact us today to learn more about how LPA can secure your digital content accessibility in preparation for the EU Accessibility Act.