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Accessibility for financial services

A blocked transfer screen means someone cannot reach their own money. That is a different category of failure from a marketing page, and it ships every two weeks.

Regulated surfaces6 surfaces · biweekly releases
2 money-movement blockers
2
money-movement blockers
no alternative route
2.1M
authentications a month
all pass through it
26
releases a year
web plus two apps
2
template fixes clear 2.3M docs
in the generator
Authentication and step-up
Code field times out with no warning
MONEYFail6
Transfers and payments
Confirmation errors announced in colour only
MONEYFail9
Statements and tax slips
2.4M generated PDFs a month, untagged
DOCSAttention18
Mobile app
Biweekly releases, iOS and Android
APPAttention14
Account opening
Verified at last release
MONEYPass0
Public site and rates
Monthly releases
MARKETINGPass0

Regulated, adversarial, and shipping fortnightly.

Three things collide here that rarely collide elsewhere: a legal duty to serve, a release cadence that outruns any audit, and security controls that themselves create barriers.

Security controls create the barriers

Timeouts, CAPTCHAs, and step-up prompts are where most exclusion in banking happens, and teams treat the security requirement as the end of the discussion.

The release cadence outruns audits

Twenty-six releases a year. An annual report is describing a product that has since changed four times over.

Complaints arrive as legal letters

Financial services is a favoured target for accessibility claims, and being unable to reach your own account is the easiest exclusion to demonstrate.

01 · Security is not an exemption

The hardest barriers are inside your controls.

Timeouts, CAPTCHAs, and step-up authentication exist for good reason, and they are where most exclusion in banking actually happens. Teams assume the security requirement settles the argument.

It usually does not. WCAG anticipates these cases, and limena tells you which accommodation the standard expects rather than leaving it as a standoff.

Fail

One-time code field times out silently

Error

The verification step expires after 60 seconds with no announced warning and no way to request more time. Anyone using a screen reader, switch access, or simply typing slowly is locked out of their own transfer.

How to fix

Warn at 20 seconds remaining, announce it politely, and offer an extension. WCAG 2.2.1 permits a timeout where it is essential for security, provided the person can extend it.

Business impact

On every transfer and payment. 2.1M authentications a month, no alternative route. Blocked customers call the contact centre at roughly $14 a call, or move their money elsewhere.

AUAuthentication squadNeeds a security review alongside the accessibility fixJIRA-8841

02 · Faster than any audit

An annual audit describes a product you no longer run.

Twenty-six releases a year across web and two native apps. By the time an audit report is formatted, the transfer flow it examined has shipped four more times.

limena verifies at each release and blocks new barriers in CI, so the conformance position is current rather than historical.

Release check · mobile v11.4

  • Contrast on primary actionsVerified
  • Transfer flow keyboard operableVerified
  • Statement download labelledVerified
  • New: step-up prompt has no labelBlocked

A new step-up prompt shipped without a label. Caught before the release reached customers, not at the next annual review.

03 · The paper trail

Statements are a product surface too.

Monthly statements, trade confirmations, and tax slips are generated at volume and almost always untagged, which means a customer who banks fine cannot read what they were sent.

limena reads every page of every template and traces the failures back to the generator, so millions of documents are fixed by one change.

Generated documents2.4M / month
  • PDFMonthly statementsTables not marked up, no document languageFail
  • PDFTrade confirmationsUntagged, reading order follows layoutFail
  • PDFTax slipsSame generator as statementsFail
  • WEBSecure message centreTagged, language setPass

Two template changes clear 2.3M documents a month. Statements are generated, so the fix is in the generator, not in the files.

Nobody locked out of their own money.

  • Money-movement surfaces separated from marketing pages, so the work starts where customers are actually locked out.
  • Security controls assessed against what WCAG actually permits, rather than treated as exempt.
  • Every release verified and new barriers blocked in CI, so the conformance position is current.
  • Statements and tax slips fixed in the generator, clearing millions of documents with two changes.

Start with authentication.

Every customer passes through it, and it is where security controls and accessibility most often collide.

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