Digital payments are advancing but there is someone who is lagging behind: they are over 120,000 blind people and one and a half million Italians who are visually impaired. For these citizens, even operations such as withdrawing cash at the ATM, paying with the Pos in a restaurant or paying for bank transfers with the app can prove to be complicated, sometimes impossible. Difficulties that cause frustration, but which above all expose you to serious risks of fraud and identity theft.
This year in October, on the occasion of the month of financial education, the Business and Consumer Observatory will dedicate an event precisely to this theme, on the 26th in the Parlamentino room of the CNEL. It will be called “Paying with your eyes closed in 2021”, the goal is to discuss how to break down the barriers that hinder access to credit for people with disabilities.
But what are the concrete difficulties that blind women and men face every day? Withdrawing money or doing other operations at ATMs is anything but trivial. Both because not all ATMs are speaking and because, even when they are, they often “speak” only to assist the customer in the withdrawal operation. “By now, however, you know, advanced ATMs can do a number of other things, such as choosing the denominations of banknotes, recharging the phone, consulting the account balance and even ordering bank transfers”, a blind reader who prefers to stay told us via email. anonymous.
Paying for a good or service can also be risky if you choose to do so with e-money. “A few nights ago I came home by taxi. And when it was time to pay for the ride, I discovered that the taxi driver had an ATM with touch keys. It was an awkward moment for both of us. In the end I chose to trust and dictate my pin to the taxi driver. But it is a fact that, if I were sighted, I would never have given anyone ”explains Dajana Gioffré, vice president of the Apri association (Pro retinopathic and visually impaired association).
When the merchant has a Pos with physical touch keys it is easier, Gioffré explains: “On the central key, 5, there is a small sign that we recognize with our fingers and, based on that, we orient ourselves on the keypad”, but the fact remains that the Pos do not speak and even in this case, you have to trust that the merchant has typed the right amount, since even the paper receipts do not communicate anything to a person who does not see.
“Those with disabilities are inclined to trust a little more, even strangers. Often, however, a situation arises in which you feel compelled to give your Pin to people who make you understand – or tell you openly – ‘look, I don’t want to cheat you’. It is difficult to make it clear that in those cases I am not choosing to trust, but I am obliged to do so ”continues Gioffré.
Pos with touch keyboard are increasing. One of the most popular brands is that of SumUp, which provides small merchants with connected pos, which can be used via smartphone. SumUp announces that it is aware of the problem of accessibility of its devices: “The usability of readers by the blind and visually impaired is the subject of a research and development project that has been underway for several months which involves the main institutions representing non sighted people, with the intention of creating a system that can improve their use of cashless payments “. In short, in a few months at least the SumUp pos should be easy for everyone to use.
Then there is the issue of mobile banking apps: services that have revolutionized the banking sector, making the visit to the branch practically useless since customers can do almost everything from their smartphone, without costs and above all in a few minutes. In this area too, the situation is patchy: “There are apps that work very well and you can perform any function, Banca Etica for example. And then there are apps where you don’t have the slightest control over what you write ”says Maurizio Molinari, blind, head of the press office of the European Parliament in Italy. In this sector, however, there is no lack of alternatives: “Satispay, Paypal, Apple Pay can be fully used without any difficulty” continues Molinari.
However, there are still several banking institutions with sites and apps built to be illegible to the speech synthesizers used by the blind. From 2025, the Accessibility Act will come into force, which obliges most banking institutions not to discriminate against customers with disabilities. In our country, the Bank of Italy has pushed – on several occasions – the banking institutions of the country to do more. In April 2021, Bank of Italy had invited banks to “take into account the needs of the most vulnerable customers right from the product design phase” and “to ensure the accessibility of websites and apps also to customers with disabilities, in line with the legislation national”. The reference is to the Simplifications decree, which extended the obligations regarding accessibility “to all” entities that offer services to the public through websites or mobile applications, with an average turnover, in the last three years of activity, exceeding five hundred million of Euro”.
But accessibility, explains Raffaella Grisafi, vice president of Konsumer Italy and the Business and Consumer Observatory, is also a contractual obligation. “When the bank opens a current account to a blind person, without specifying that, for example, ATMs and online services are not accessible, it is selling him a non-compliant and non-usable product, failing to specify it in the pre-contractual phase. The gradual abandonment of physical currency cannot become an element of social exclusion ”.
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