UBA launches account opening form for visually-impaired people
United Bank for Africa (UBA) has launched the UBA Braille Account Opening Form designed specifically to cater to the financial needs of the visually impaired as part of its financial inclusion programme.
Braille is a reading and writing system for blind and vision-impaired people. It is made up of raised dots that can be ‘read’ by touch.
Braille is a reading and writing system for blind and vision-impaired people. It is made up of raised dots that can be ‘read’ by touch.
A statement by the bank said the initiative demonstrates its commitment towards providing an excellent user experience for all its customers, regardless of their individual abilities or disabilities.
According to the statement, the account opening form was launched at the UBA Head Office in Lagos on Tuesday in an event that had in attendance key executive members of the bank and guests including Award-winning Nigerian Musician, Producer, and Songwriter, Cobhams Asuquo.
Others present at the launch were the General Manager, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs, Dare Dairo; Former Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Persons Living with Disability, Adenike Oyetunde-Lawal, as well as students from the Pacelli School of the Blind.
Executive Director of Finance and Risk Management at UBA, Ugo Nwaghodoh said the innovation is expected to include those that have been excluded from the banking system.
“It is important to achieve financial inclusion and one of the key things that is driving it is that we desire to make sure everyone feels at home in our banking environment,” he said.
“Today what you have is people reading out the content of the account opening form for this category of customers. Sometimes they don’t get the right message on the account opening form or the person reading it to them is too fast or slow, and they don’t get the information.
“Our objective is to put this freedom in their hands and to make it possible for them to independently read the account opening form and understand what is required and make their choices.
“What we are driving with this is basically to include those that have been excluded from the banking system and indeed we have a lot of other similar initiatives in the pipeline.”
