Nationwide partners Signly to offer British Sign Language website translation service for deaf customers
The UK’s largest building society, Nationwide, has partnered with British Sign Language (BSL) technology company Signly to offer a new digital service that translates its website into BSL, as part of a push to enhance its support for deaf customers.
Nationwide partners Signly for BSL website translation service
Nationwide says the roll out, which coincides with the start of Sign Language Week in the UK, will ensure that deaf customers “can access services in their primary language and improve access to financial services”.
UK charity the British Deaf Association (BDA) estimates that BSL is the primary language for 87,000 people in the country, while a recent report from the Lending Standards Board highlights that only 6% of financial services firms offer BSL-translated websites.
Nationwide says its BSL content is provided “in the form of pre-recorded signed videos, with the most popular web pages available first”.
“Content will grow over time and users can select any new pages to be translated,” it adds.
Signly’s technology also “continually monitors website content to ensure that translations stay true to the text”.
Kathryn Townsend, head of customer accessibility at Nationwide, says the new offering will “improve access to vital financial information” for deaf customers.
The roll out builds on Nationwide’s existing accessibility services, which include remote BSL access via video through its call centres and in-branch BSL interpretation.
