Â鶹ԼÅÄ

NOTE: This is a written summary, not a full transcript.

Felicity Hannah: More must be done to make sure banking is accessible for people who are deaf or have some kind of hearing loss. That's the conclusion of a new report.

One in five people in the UK are affected and now the regulatory body, the Lending Standards Board, is calling for greater inclusion. It's worried that some practices, like banks phoning deaf customers or bringing in third parties, might leave people more open to fraud and scams.

Now to get a better picture of what it's actually like, we contacted Tim who's featured in the report.

Tim: I have grown up profoundly deaf. I was born deaf. My family are hearing. My first language is British Sign Language.

Seems like what is highlighted in the report is that it seems we're treated as second class citizens because we aren't getting that direct communication.

It's always indirect, so they tend to say, ‘Can we speak with a friend of yours? Can you bring along a family member?’, and it’s just never appropriate to ask that, because what happens in a situation like that is the deaf person becomes irrelevant, those two people that can hear are having a conversation amongst themselves that we are not a part of, and it's so crucial that we are part of that process.

We're never actually asked ‘Would you like an interpreter? Would you prefer to communicate it this way, or that way?’ We’re never asked that. We do have banks a lot of the time, call me repeatedly, even though I've already disclosed I have a hearing loss and I cannot speak on the phone, they persistently call me and call me. Banks do need to have more deaf awareness training.

With English and British Sign Language, the grammar and the structure is so different. So it's very challenging for a deaf person to be able to read English.

I'm sure you might have heard the phrase reasonable adjustments, the term that's been used a lot of the time, I mean it's so vague as to what exactly that means. I have been in the bank before where they considered a reasonable adjustment to be writing things back and forth to me, but with BSL being my first language not English, to me, that wouldn't be a reasonable adjustment.

Rob Geaney is Head of Campaigns at the RNID the National Hearing loss charity:

At RNID our contact centre is constantly engaged by people who are having these troubles, their bank aren't accessible, and they are not taking note of their communication preferences.

We notice that lots of banks don't offer deaf customers a range of alternative contact methods to the phone line. There are things such as email, whether it's online chats, or other systems, and where these aren't available some deaf people are forced to rely on a friend or a partner or somebody else that they might not want to, to engage with the bank on their behalf. And that both opens them up to fraud, but it also undermines their privacy, and their ability to sort of live an independent life. Deaf people are perfectly capable of managing their own finances. They just need the system to work for them.

Felicity: UK Finance, which represents the banking sector, told us it's committed to supporting customers and that banks do offer extra support; things like BSL translations in branches, longer appointments, and quiet rooms.

Rob: So I think there is some good practice across the sector. I think one of the mistakes that's often made is the idea that deaf people are all the same, and they all have the same communication needs. And we often find the banks and other financial services will offer one alternative contact method, but that's not suitable for everybody.

So if you're a British Sign Language user with poor written English, email might not be a reasonable adjustment and you'd want a video relay service. And what doesn't tend to happen is that a range of different options tailored to individual needs is offered to the deaf customer.

Felicity: The Lending Standards Board, the body behind the report says, unless Banks and financial institutions actually speak to people with lived experience of deafness about what they need, they risk making decisions for a community that might actually turn out to be wrong.

Do you think banks engage enough with the people who are affected?

Rob: No, and I think we quite often find that accessibility is an afterthought on a system that already exists. And I think the best option is usually to involve that lived experience when you're constructing systems. I think one of the starkest statistics in the report was that only 6% of webpages for financial services are translated into BSL. And I think this is an example of, where if you engage lived experience earlier in the process, deaf people will be able to explain the barriers they have, accessing complex jargon in a second language, and we find that the systems and the processes were much better.

Show less