New BCRA Measure to Streamline the Inclusion of People with Disabilities

Financial institutions must incorporate audio players into online banking and mobile banking apps to enable people with disabilities to better understand the contents, in accordance with a measure adopted by the Board of the BCRA.

In the same sense, financial institutions must also implement the following measures:

• Take the necessary steps so that any communications, notices and advertisements that contain images have an alternative text describing the visual content through the audio player.
• Promote the training of customer service staff in disability awareness—based on the principle of accessibility—and in the Argentine Sign Language in order to guarantee equal access and respectful treatment towards hearing-impaired and speech-impaired users, preventing any type of discrimination.
• Facilitate in-person services at bank branches through trained staff and/or video calls with a sign language interpreting service. To that end, financial institutions must efficiently distribute their resources taking into account the location and the area of influence of their operating branches to reach the greatest coverage with this service.

Financial institutions must implement these measures within 180 calendar days.

This regulation was approved after considering all the suggestions made by the National Agency on Disability at the meetings held with the technical areas of the BCRA.

May 26, 2022