Banco Santander has rolled out a new digital service for deaf customers in the UK by providing its website in British Sign Language (BSL).
The rollout of the BSL technology that translates the bank’s website aims to provide more deaf customers with access to key financial information.
Customers can go to the deaf or hearing loss accessibility page on the Santander website to turn Signly on. Once on, a qualified translator is displayed in the corner of the screen to translate the selected text into BSL for the customer.
Translations are currently available on the most visited pages of the Santander website. The number of translated pages will increase as customers can make requests for additional pages of the website to be translated by Signly, which will be produced within seven days.
There are around 87,000 Deaf people in the UK who use BSL as their preferred language.
Santander’s head of user experience & design, Tom Paget, says: “Everyone should be able to access digital services without barriers. Signly is the perfect partner to help us become a more inclusive and accessible bank by providing British Sign Language translations for our website.”
Santander is following in the footsteps of Nationwide, which in March introduced the Signly service across its website.
A recent report by self-regulatory banking body, the Lending Standards Board (LSB), found that whilst 65% of registered banking firms offered BSL services in-branch, and 59% offered remote BSL access via video, only six per cent provided on-demand access to website content.
The launch of the service builds on the existing range of accessibility services offered by Santander, including SignVideo BSL into contact centres and in-branch BSL interpretation.
The rollout of Signly builds on existing services for deaf customers. Santander offers SignVideo which connects customers to a professional interpreter who will interpret on their behalf to an advisor. SignVideo can be used from home, or customers can bring their device into branch to speak to colleagues face to face through a BSL interpreter. Should customers wish, they can bring their own interpreter to their local branch or Santander can book an interpreter for a customer free of charge. The bank also supports Relay UK, which allows customers to use the Relay UK app or textphone to speak to colleagues by converting customers’ speech into text and vice versa.
More information on Santander’s accessibility offering is available on the Santander website.
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Notes to editors
In any reporting, Editors are asked to include signposting to the QR code (above) and/or the following URL https://signly.co/news, which links to the press release in BSL. This is to ensure equality of access for the Deaf community.
Since 2017, Signly has had a singular mission: to deliver sign language everywhere. The Signly service is free and easy to use, with website users completing a one-time opt-in via the Santander website to be presented with a pop-up video of the content in BSL, alongside the corresponding text. For enquiries about Signly, contact Mark on hello@signly.co
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. At 31 December 2023, the bank had around 19,800 employees and serves around 14 million active customers, 7 million digital customers via a nationwide 444 branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the FCA and the PRA in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the FSCS in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in the Europe, North America and South America regions, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Santander aims to be the best open financial services platform providing services to individuals, SMEs, corporates, financial institutions and governments. The bank’s purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising €220 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2030. At the end of 2023, Banco Santander had €1.3 trillion in total funds, 165 million customers, 8,500 branches and over 212,000 employees.