The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of UK Finance or its members.

Learning a new language to conversational level. 
Paying off a medium sized loan. 
Undergoing and recovering from major surgery.

According to Chat GPT, these are all things that generally happen in a three year period. Probably not surprisingly, “deliver accessible banking” isn’t listed.

But as I come to the end of my fixed tenure as the UK Government’s Disability & Access Ambassador for the banking sector, what have I observed during these three years in role? 

The main difference between the list of singular achievements and what the banking sector has achieved on disability inclusion is summarised in one word: collaboration.

The banking industry isn’t particularly well known for working together. Important rules governing anti-competitive behaviour rightly feature strongly in industry talks, but what about when the conversation isn’t on pricing and products, but access and inclusion?

I’m pleased to say that the approach in these conversations is very different. The regulator and firms have landed in a sensible place that can recognise where innovation and leadership can be a brand asset, but that creating an accessible playing field for consumers is the most important goal, and progress can happen sooner when you collaborate.

Across my three priorities as Ambassador*; learning disability awareness, deaf access and disabled customer experience, I witnessed (and encouraged) all forms of collaboration:

• Individuals – Top of this list is people with lived experience adding their voice about the reality of what happens when banking isn’t accessible. As the famous saying goes: “nothing about us, without us”. 
• Charities – They have so much insight to bring to the table. Importantly, working with grass roots charities as well as the national names is important as each bring different perspectives. With money cutting through every facet of life, disability charities often have this topic high on their agendas.
• Banks – On accessibility, there is little point every firm starting from scratch. Indeed, siloes can lead to greater inconsistency for consumers. At the Deaf Inclusion industry group I chair, we have organically grown from 10 to over 30 high street banks, building societies to neo banks, credit providers and debt charities. The monthly meetings allow us to work towards focused goals; learning from one another’s past experiences and driving each other forward. 
• Regulatory bodies – The support of the Lending Standards Board for the work on deaf consumers was significant; they worked at arm’s length to the industry group to independently report on the issues faced by Deaf people and what banks should do about it. One year on they reported back, evidencing through data that collaboration was driving change. 
• Companies – Whilst the Experian Support Hub, which offers a novel way to centrally record access needs, is a commercial endeavour, the way this came together could only have been achieve through the collaboration of individuals, charities and firms – led by a company. Most notably, the agreed standardised list of support needs was developed in parallel and is available to all open source at www.whatweneed.support.
• Industry bodies – UK Finance are experts in bringing firms together.  The UK Finance Vulnerability Committee and its members not only helped me define the priority areas, but also participated in working groups. Furthermore, they have led wider activity such as the Accessible Banking work with EY.

Despite the green shoots, there is still a long way to go before disabled people have the universally accessible experience they need (and of course, are legally entitled to), but what I have observed is that when people come together with a common goal, anything is possible.  Kathryn is the Head of Customer Vulnerability at Nationwide. 

*You can read more about my areas of focus in my full Impact Report (PDF), which includes a BSL version, and a plain text version (Word).