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One important measure of a bank’s accessibility and general customer-friendliness is the variety of channels it provides for all types of clients – including those with a disability (*).
In late 2010 BNP Paribas Fortis became the first bank in Belgium to introduce voice-equipped ATMs for the convenience of blind and visually-impaired customers.
Today 720 cash machines – located inside or on the outside of various branches or inside a number of railway stations – are equipped with voice-guidance technology. Use this link to see the list of addresses of voice-guided ATMs in French or in Dutch. Identified by their braille sticker, these ATMs have been specially adapted for the convenience of customers whose visual impairment prevents them using the standard touch-screen to make cash withdrawals.
To start the session, the customer plugs a set of headphones into the terminal and inserts his or her bank card into the slot. A voice-guidance system then takes the customer through the various steps of the transaction. In order to ensure security, the screen remains blank during the entire process.
Cash withdrawals can also be made using a credit card. Moreover, all card-users – not only those who have an account with BNP Paribas Fortis or Fintro – are entitled to make use of our voice-guided ATMs.
The Braille League has expressed its appreciation for what BNP Paribas Fortis is doing to make life easier for visually-impaired people. You can read what the League has to say on the subject on the official website: www.braille.be. See also the photo gallery below.
(*) Another example of how BNP Paribas Fortis is working to provide easier access to services for those with disabilities is our online banking channel PC banking, which comes very close to matching the criteria listed by ‘AnySurfer’, a quality label designed to identify websites that are ‘accessible to all’.
The Comfort Voice card-reader provides an extra-large keypad plus an LCD-display with large fonts, accompanied by speech-based user-guidance and feedback. This enables the customer to carry out all PC banking operations and also to make secure payments for online purchases.