Website accessibility for banks and credit institutions
Since 28 June 2025 digital accessibility is a legal requirement for banks and credit institutions too. Check for free, in about a minute, whether your site meets the WCAG 2.1 AA criteria required by the European regulation.
Why it concerns you too
Consumer banking services are listed expressly in the European Accessibility Act: online banking, informational sites and onboarding must meet WCAG 2.1 AA. In finance, oversight is closer and the reputational damage of excluding someone is higher than elsewhere.
The obligation comes from EU Directive 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act), fully applicable since 28 June 2025. Non-compliance risks administrative fines, consumer complaints and remediation orders. Only service microenterprises are exempt: fewer than 10 employees and less than €2 million turnover.
The issues we find most often in this sector
Authentication and OTP with tight timeouts
Codes that expire in seconds and sessions that close with no accessible warning: for people using assistive technologies there is never enough time.
Documents and contracts as untagged PDFs
Fact sheets, statements and contracts generated as unstructured PDFs, unreadable by screen readers.
Multi-step forms with no error handling
Product applications across several steps where errors are neither announced nor tied to their fields.
These are recurring examples found in scans of sites in this sector: your site may have others (or none at all). The only way to know is to check.
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Analyse your site for freeFrequently asked questions
- Does the European Accessibility Act apply to banks and credit institutions?
- Consumer banking services are listed expressly in the European Accessibility Act: online banking, informational sites and onboarding must meet WCAG 2.1 AA. In finance, oversight is closer and the reputational damage of excluding someone is higher than elsewhere.
- Which accessibility issues are typical for banks and credit institutions?
- The three we find most often: Authentication and OTP with tight timeouts; Documents and contracts as untagged PDFs; Multi-step forms with no error handling.
- How do I check whether my site is compliant?
- Start with the free EAA Sentinel scan: a real browser analyses up to 3 pages of your site and returns a 0-100 score with the most severe issues in about a minute. The full report (€49 one-time) extends the analysis to up to 50 pages, with every issue and fix instructions. Automated analysis detects 30-40% of WCAG issues — the machine-verifiable ones: full compliance also requires manual checks.
Want the regulatory picture for your sector? European Accessibility Act for banks and credit institutions