Introduction
Banking and payment services are a basic necessity for every part of society. Ensuring that users with visual, hearing or motor impairments can reach these services is increasingly part of regulatory expectations in Türkiye, as it already is in many countries.
Accessibility is often treated as a "nice to have" item at the end of a project, but in financial services that approach carries both ethical and legal risk. In this article we look at why accessibility is a fundamental requirement in financial product design and how it is applied in practice.
A finding that comes up frequently in SameUp's accessibility audits: products that look visually modern still carry significant gaps in basic technical requirements such as keyboard navigation and screen reader compatibility.
In Financial Services, Accessibility Is Not Optional
Banking and payment services are a basic necessity for every part of society. Ensuring that users with visual, hearing or motor impairments can reach these services is increasingly part of regulatory expectations in Türkiye, as it already is in many countries.
Unlike accessibility problems in other digital services, a user unable to reach their own money becomes a question of fundamental rights. For financial institutions, accessibility is therefore a matter of social responsibility beyond reputational risk.
Accessibility is not limited to visual or hearing impairment; a temporary hand injury, declining visual acuity with age, or a low-bandwidth connection all trigger accessibility requirements too.
The Core Principles of the WCAG Standards
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) require content to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. In financial products these principles translate into concrete requirements: sufficient colour contrast, keyboard navigability and screen reader compatibility.
WCAG compliance is generally assessed at three levels: A, AA and AAA. Most regulatory frameworks and corporate policies target AA as a minimum; it offers a practical, achievable accessibility standard for most users.
The automated scanning tools used to check WCAG compliance can verify measurable criteria such as contrast ratio, but they cannot judge whether a form's logical flow makes sense to a screen reader — which is why manual testing is always necessary.
Colour Contrast and Colour Blindness
Information conveyed by colour alone — a negative balance shown in red, for instance — becomes unreadable for users with colour blindness. That information needs reinforcing with an icon or text.
In a transaction history, for example, rather than distinguishing incoming and outgoing money by green and red alone, supporting it with plus and minus signs or directional arrow icons lets users with colour blindness read it correctly too.
Colour blindness affects roughly one in ten men — a proportion that represents a substantial group within any financial app's user base.
Screen Reader Friendly Form Design
Failing to assign proper labels to form fields leaves screen reader users unable to tell what belongs in each field. In payment forms in particular, that is a serious usability barrier.
Text sitting visually beside a form field also has to be associated with that field technically (through aria-label or a for/id pairing). Otherwise the screen reader announces the field only as "text box" and the user has to guess what to enter.
Screen reader friendly form design is not limited to labelling; error messages need announcing to the screen reader as they happen (through aria-live regions), or the user cannot understand why the form isn't progressing.
The Business Value of Accessibility
Investment in accessibility is not just a compliance cost — it is an opportunity to reach a wider audience. Accessible design principles generally improve the experience for all users.
A high-contrast interface benefits not only visually impaired users but anyone reading their phone screen in sunlight. This "universal design" effect is an important argument for making the business value of accessibility visible.
When making the case for accessibility investment to senior management, emphasizing its indirect positive effects on SEO and general usability — alongside legal risk reduction — can make the decision easier.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
A common mistake is marking accessibility "done" on the strength of an automated scanning tool's report; these tools catch only a portion of the problems, usually less than a third.
Another is applying accessibility improvements only to newly developed features without retrospectively reviewing existing, heavily used screens such as balance views and transfer flows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which WCAG level should financial institutions target?
For most regulatory frameworks and corporate policies, AA is a practical and achievable minimum.
How is accessibility testing carried out?
Automated scanning tools catch the basic problems, but manual testing with real screen reader users produces deeper and more realistic results.
Does accessible design add cost?
Included from the start of the process, the additional cost is low; left to the end, it rises because the existing interface may need restructuring.
Are automated accessibility scanning tools enough?
No; they catch measurable issues such as contrast ratio but detect only a portion of overall problems, so manual testing with real users is essential.
Conclusion
In its financial sector projects, SameUp treats accessibility not as a layer added afterwards but as a requirement included from the beginning of the design process.
If you would like to assess your current product's accessibility level, we can arrange an accessibility audit with the SameUp team.