Banks dial into deaf needs

By NEIL SIMPSON
Updated:

 

Banks are sprucing up their systems to extend phone banking to a group of customers traditionally excluded from it - the deaf.

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Samantha Ford is a regular user of Alliance & Leicester's phone banking service despite having been hard of hearing all her life.

Samantha, who is taking a career break from her job as a stock controller at Tesco to raise her girls Jadene, two, and Yasmin, eight months, says: 'In the past I had to rely on my partner Mark to help me run my account.

'It was difficult for both of us because, though Mark could telephone my former bank, we had to go through all sorts of checks as staff were reluctant to deal with a customer's affairs through a third party.'

That changed after they signed up for Alliance & Leicester's Minicom-linked service in 1997. Samantha, 28, from Thetford, Norfolk, has since used it to do everything from paying bills to checking balances and direct debits.

A Minicom is effectively a text telephone with a keyboard and screen attached so conversations are typed rather than spoken. Minicoms cost from about £200, but users receive discounts on BT calls made with them.

John Caine, corporate affairs director of Alliance & Leicester and a board member on the Employers' Forum on Disability, says: 'We were the first to grasp the benefits of phone banking for the deaf as far back as 1991.

We have continued to upgrade our equipment to ensure it is the most effective available for the hard-of-hearing. Our main aim is to enable all our customers to take full control of their financial affairs.'

While some rival banks such as FirstDirect have staff available on a Minicom service 24 hours a day, not every High Street name is as helpful to customers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Lloyds TSB does not yet offer Minicom contact, though it may do so after the Disability Rights Act comes into force in October.

In the meantime, increasing numbers of deaf or hard-of-hearing people are finding the best way to manage their money is on the Internet.

Most banks and building societies offer online banking. Nationwide charges no special user or account management fees, and HSBC will shortly unveil television banking via a link with Sky to enable customers to manage their money on-screen from home.

Both types of high-tech banking are ideal for those who have problems communicating by telephone.

In the High Street, most banks and building societies also aim to help the hard-of-hearing by having at least one counter fitted with an induction loop.

This device tunes into customers' hearing aids to suppress background noise and the symbol of an ear with a 'T' below it is displayed where the system operates.

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