Leaders - Polish Bank Association
Good practices for accessibility and plain language
Long before the EAA entered into force, Polish banks had already been involved in developing good practices, educational initiatives, and staff training focused on ensuring service accessibility.
Since 2012, under the auspices of the Polish Bank Association, banks have published:
- 3 editions of Good Practices for Serving Persons with Disabilities in Banks
- 3 parts of Good Practices for Plain Banking Communication.
The “Let’s Talk About Accessibility” series
In 2023, the Polish Bank Association organized a series of meetings for bank employees responsible for accessibility under the theme “Let’s Talk About Accessibility.”
Speakers included practitioners – solution providers and representatives of organizations supporting people with disabilities.
Plain language standard
Within the framework of the Polish Bank Association, banks have reached an agreement on the clarity of language in retail banking services, working in collaboration with plain language experts.
The purpose of the agreement is to complement the supervisory authority’s guideline on the comprehensibility of information.
Through this agreement, banks aim to confirm the sector’s common approach to the EAA’s requirement for clear and understandable information, based on plain language and expanding on previous sector initiatives (in 2020, banks signed a declaration on the standard for plain language).
Accessibility implementation standards and guidelines
Within the Polish Bank Association, banks in workshop meetings have developed common standards and guidelines for implementing accessibility, including:
- interpretative clarifications to accessibility regulations
- a service accessibility map (standards and templates for assessing the compliance of services with accessibility requirements)
- standards and templates for information on service accessibility and information on architectural accessibility.