Easing the banking challenges for people with disabilities

What are routine banking activities for most of us can be major undertakings for people with disabilities.

Val Srinivas from Deloitte joins us to share his firm’s recent research into the difficulties people with disabilities encounter while banking, and how banks can make things easier.

A few takeaways from the conversation:

• The foremost challenge is physical limitations of the disability itself, but there can also be related challenges like lower incomes and a higher likelihood of being unbanked or underbanked.
• Ways to better serve those with disabilities include new products and services aimed at financial wellbeing, broader access to credit and more access to education to raise financial literacy.
• Mobile banking has made interacting with banks much easier for people with disabilities, but that experience can be improved via mobile tools specially made for those with disabilities.

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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Val Srinivas, banking and capital markets research leader at Deloitte. Welcome to the BAI Banking Strategies podcast.

Thank you, Terry. I’m delighted to be here.

So Val, can you give us some background about your research, including why you took up this particular topic and how you went about conducting the survey?

This particular study is a natural extension of our focus on financial inclusion. In doing previous research, we came across some really staggering statistics. According to the World Bank, there’s about 1.5 billion people who are considered people with disabilities. And in the U.S., one in four adults are people with disabilities. So this is a huge number, and we felt there is some white space here and we could offer some perspectives on what banks could be doing to better serve people with disabilities. And in terms of the research itself, we took a two-pronged approach. We wanted to hear directly from the people with disabilities and also their caregivers. So we did a survey, 1,000 each, and we complemented that with some qualitative research, focus groups we did among Deloitte employees. These are people with disabilities themselves or they are allies or caregivers of people with disabilities. So that’s how the kind of the research came together.

For the purposes of your research, what fell under the heading of disabilities and were some categories more prominent or more pronounced than others?

They cover a broad spectrum, including physical as well as cognitive. Physical such as vision loss and cognitive could be Alzheimer’s. Some of these disabilities could be from birth or developed early in life or later in life, acquired due to age such as a dementia and so on. So it’s a very broad spectrum. But we use the classification from the CDC for the purpose of our research. And mobility was the largest category. Mobility by itself may not be the only disability people experience. It could be connected with other disabilities as well. So that’s broad spectrum of disabilities.

The report that you and your colleagues produced goes more than 30 pages, so clearly your research yielded plenty of insights on the theme of banks better serving the disabled. What were some of the top takeaways from the survey and how did those findings line up with what you expected to find as you put the survey together?

Yeah, that’s a great question. We had some hypotheses going in and we thought first and foremost that the needs of people with disabilities would be quite unique. But when we asked the question of people with disabilities, what we discovered is they have the same desires and goals as anybody else. They want to have a comfortable retirement, they want to have enough savings for emergency expenses. They want to do the things that we all enjoy. That was one kind of very interesting finding for us. And related to that, financial insecurity. This is a real challenge for people with disabilities – many people with disabilities, not all. And it compounds the problems they face in their daily lives.

What are some of the key challenges that people with disabilities in the U.S. face as they interact with their banks?

There are a number of challenges, Terry. Let’s take income as a starting point. Many people with disabilities are unable to participate in the labor force. So if you look at the statistics, the labor force participation rate in the adult population is about 67%, but for people with disabilities, it’s only 21%. Median earnings are lower and, as a result, many of them are also unbanked or underbanked. Limits on income is a big constraint. And then as far as expenses are concerned, many people with disabilities face significant expenses related to healthcare for the most part, and they cover the gamut. Medical insurance or Medicare doesn’t fully cover all those expenses. And as a result, what we have is a situation where the income is lower, expenses are higher, and savings are lower. This results in, I would say, a lower sense of financial well-being, and they tend to be more focused on short-term financial priorities as opposed to long-term financial goals.

Looking at it from the other side now, what did your research discover about how banks currently think about what they need to do to serve people with disabilities? And is the dominant thing in their mind about accessibility and adhering to legal mandates, like the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Many banks, they are working to address the needs of people with disabilities and no doubt complying with the ADA is a top priority and many already comply. They’ve installed ramps, for instance; at branches, they use braille keypads, they enable audio instructions. On the digital front, banks, websites and mobile apps, they do consider some of the guidelines from World Wide Web Consortium guidelines. So complying with the regulations is not enough, they should try to go beyond that. And we do discuss what are some areas where banks could focus their efforts.

The title of the report is, “How banks can better serve people with disabilities, and why the time is now.” I’m not sure I can improve on the directness of that wording, so broadly speaking, Val, how can banks better serve people with disabilities now?

In the report, we talk about four specific areas. We wanted to be very clear about what banks can do to help people with disabilities. What can banks do to elevate the financial wellbeing? And this is not just with improving accessibility, but also new products and tools and services, such as tailoring existing products. We have many debit cards and credit cards that have rewards and discounts. But for people with disabilities, how do we encourage them to save? So collaborating with maybe healthcare providers and expanding these incentives to reward customers with savings could be one area. Then personal financial management tools that could be very effective in helping people with disabilities. What are some unique PFM tools that the banks could design tailored for people with disabilities? I think one example we talk about in the report is of neuro-diverse individuals who may have learning disabilities such as dyslexia or memory difficulties. So how do you help them with new tools to manage money, budgeting, investing or even doing financial calculations, for example. And the other one is empowering people with disabilities with information and advice, and access to credit. Many people with disabilities are credit-constrained, so how can banks help them in this regard? And lastly, designing more accessible banking experiences, both physical and digital. So these are the four areas we focus on in the report.

You mentioned several key areas here. Let’s take them one at a time here and maybe go into a little more depth. Starting with access to credit, what are the current constraints on access to credit based on disabilities, and what can banks do to improve on this while also following their credit risk policies and parameters?

The need for credit is quite acute – the need for emergency funds, for example. Because of the conditions, there’s limited predictability as to their healthcare expenses. And there are programs out there that try to help, but they may not be enough. So access to credit is a pervasive challenge. Also, because of their lower income, their inability to participate in the labor force, et cetera, they have a poor credit record. In our survey, we found that four in 10 were denied new credit. So some of them have no choice but to go to alternative sources, including payday lenders. And people with disabilities are some of the heaviest users of payday lenders who, as we know, charge exorbitant fees. The second aspect is credit discrimination is quite common. People with disabilities face credit discrimination. We see this in data and statistics, whether it’s related to housing or other forms of finance. That’s a huge problem. Banks can do a number of things in this regard, maybe thinking of micro loans, using concepts such as buy now, pay later, flexibility in credit terms, et cetera. Banks could use to better provide access to credit in this population.

Same basic question on advice, right? Advice is an area that banks say they are prioritizing as a way to develop deeper and more enduring customer relationships. So as they are shaping how they’re going to do that, what should they be thinking about advice-wise in the context of people with disabilities?

Any financial consumer, people with disabilities could also benefit greatly from financial advice. But given their unique needs, the type of advice they need and how this advice is delivered to them could be different. You might need specialized training and you might need dedicated staff. And also they should be trained on any of the financial products and services and digital tools that can address the unique needs of people with disabilities. The second thing I would say is technology can be used very effectively, whether it’s automated advice, or these days there’s so much buzz about generative AI. So how could those be used to deliver information and advice to people with disabilities? And lastly, I would say we shouldn’t forget the caregivers. Caregivers are such a big part of the lives of many people with disabilities. So how do you engage with them? How do you make them partners in delivering advice and information to people with disabilities?

So Val, regarding design and the physical environment more broadly, we talked a bit earlier about the ADA that imposes the accessibility requirements. But going beyond that, what can banks do to make a branch visit an easier experience for people with disabilities?

We had done some focus groups among Deloitte employees and those with disabilities, and those who were allies of people with disabilities. And these are folks who make a decent living working at places like Deloitte, but even they, when think of branches, for example, they had some suggestions how banks could improve accessibility in a physical sense. Could be the teller windows, for example, for somebody in a wheelchair. Maybe the teller windows are not low enough. So this is a very simple thing perhaps. The other is having dedicated windows for people with disabilities. And then if you think about digital experiences, whether it’s apps or websites, using the right colors, the font, font size, et cetera, for those who may be visually challenged, these are some things that I think banks could pay more attention to, possibly beyond what the ADA requires of institutions.

When it comes to being more mindful of the needs of people with disabilities, are any banks currently doing it well that you could point to? And if there are, what are they doing that works that other banks could learn from?

In our research we looked at examples, both in the U.S. and outside the U.S. There are a number of examples we believe that could be an inspiration to banks, any kind of bank that’s keen on serving people with disabilities. In the report, we point out Bank of America and Wells Fargo — they have tailored trust and financial planning where specialized advisors provide solutions to families of people with disabilities. Outside the U.S., NatWest, they have a very unique approach where they created a, I think it’s called an inclusive design panel. So they invite individuals and experts to share feedback on how they should be designing products and experiences for people with disabilities. Similarly, in the U.S., U.S. Bank, I think it’s called a digital accessibility team that listens to customers, people with disabilities and designs and products and services accordingly. I think the common thing is thinking of people with disabilities as a unique segment and using the notion of equity-centered design to listen to people with disabilities, to engage with them in the co-design of these products and experiences. I think that is the common aspect here, and that’s what we are trying to encourage banks to do as well.

With improvements in technology, mobile banking is seeing strong and steady growth, and that’s expected to continue well into the foreseeable future. Is this adding more challenges for people with disabilities or is it perhaps making things easier for them?

I think mobile banking has made things easier for people with disabilities. You don’t have to visit a branch, you don’t have to maybe call the call center to resolve some problems. So I think mobile banking on the whole has been more of a beneficial experience for people with disabilities. But at the same time, maybe the experience can be improved, whether it’s using different colors or fonts, buttons, et cetera, that could be more accessible for people with disabilities. And increasingly, not just mobile banking, but other tools, such as chatbots and so on, could be very effectively used to better serve people with disabilities.

Banks are dealing with a lot of things these days: disruptive competition, major internal technology challenges, growing cost of fraud, and also an uncertain regulatory landscape, just to mention a few. Both monetary and employee bandwidth are not limitless resources. So, Val, let’s wrap things up with you making a concise case for why paying more attention to the needs of people with disabilities should be a priority. And again, coming back to the title of your report, why the time is now.

That’s a great point, Terry. Serving people with disabilities, expanding financial inclusion is not only the right thing to do, but you can also have other advantages, commercial and reputational as well. This is a sizable segment. And if you include caregivers, we are talking about millions of customers just in the U.S. alone. This is a huge opportunity for anyone, any institution to design new product services and experiences. We should also remember that we have an aging population in the developed economies and the people with disabilities, that segment is only likely to grow. But fortunately, we have developments in technologies that can be used quite effectively in serving people with disabilities. So I would say the time is definitely now looking ahead and thinking of all the developments that have happened in the technology space. And banks can not only earn the trust and goodwill of people with disabilities and their caregivers, but what they do to serve this particular segment can have a spillover effect. The changes that you make to your products and experiences can impact other people as well, and we should not discount that potential benefit. So that’s why we make the case that the time is now to better serve people with disabilities in the banking world.

Val Srinivas from Deloitte, many thanks again for joining us on the BAI Banking Strategies podcast.

Thank you, Terry. Wonderful to be here.