Media Releases > Press Articles 2002

COTA presses for Electronic Banking to be safer and easier for older people

Sunshine Coast Seniors Newspaper, March 2002, p12

Council on the Ageing (COTA) welcomed bank industry plans for easier electronic banking for older people and those with disabilities but with some reservations, according to its Information Manager Helen Scott. COTA has taken a leading advocacy and policy role in ensuring that new electronic banking standards will assist older people.

COTA in its response to the draft industry standards "commends the Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) for its initiative with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) in developing industry standards for electronic bank services. They are a critical step towards making these services more accessible to everyone, and in particular to older people and people with disabilities." The working groups are to be congratulated for the detailed research and information on best practice.

However Ms Scott criticised some aspects of the new plans and also the lack of time made available for community response and discussion. The short time frame over Christmas meant that people may have missed out, and she would like details from the ABA on the extent and content of responses received.

Problems identified by COTA in the draft standards include:

• Safety issues of ATM use are not sufficiently recognised in the standard for ATM and EFTPOS. Fear and the real risks of robbery or exploitation associated with ATM and eftpos use are frequently expressed by older people, as also noted by the HREOC inquiry in 1999.

• The detailed research and information on best practice in the draft standards is commendable, but a less technical version would also be useful. Or as one reader put it, "could someone show us what a conforming ATM looks like, or what best practice in plastic card swiping might be?"

• Voluntary compliance. Compliance with the Industry Standards is voluntary, not mandatory, and their adoption is a matter for individual decisions by financial services institutions.

• No monitoring of compliance. The draft standards do not indicate any measures for monitoring or reporting on the compliance of financial institutions, nor for remedying situations or dealing with complaints where they fail to meet standards.

Consumers are sceptical about relying on good will. Will major financial institutions which function quite independently for competitive reasons be committed to adopting the new standards? The process needs to also address the issues of monitoring, breaches, complaints and redress, and public reporting.

Other suggestions by Helen Scott on behalf of COTA include:

• Using older people or seniors, not elderly , as preferred terminology.

• The standards should talk in terms of products not only being "disability friendly" but "age-friendly" since most older people do not rate themselves as having a disability, even if they are deaf or have very poor vision. Although approximately 50% of people over 60 have some form of disability, older people are more likely to see a disabling condition as part of growing older, not being "a person with a disability".

• To assist take-up of electronic services, investigation, development, and funding of practical, innovative, grass roots education and access programs are needed. Funding, sponsoring or partnerships should come from the banking and finance industry and government. There is great potential for projects to extend the IT training currently being provided by groups like COTA, Australian Seniors Computing Clubs Association and U3A to include electronic financial services, for example by producing and testing learning materials on online and self-service banking. Involving older people's input into design, trialling and market testing of products and services is important.

• Users with a range of capabilities and limitations need to be involved in testing all new products and equipment before installation, not just as recommended for EFTPOS.

• Greater consistency between banks in presentation of data on bank web sites for individual accounts, to avoid confusion for all, not just older people! Web sites design should ensure information is not lost when it is printed out.

Helen Scott concludes that "Electronic banking services along with other information and communication technologies are becoming a part of daily life for everyone, including older people. Their use will be a pre-requisite skill for participation in Australia's society and economy."

"By specifying how electronic banking services are to be designed and used the draft standards are a vital step in addressing access for people on the wrong side of the digital divide. The next steps are to make sure that the standards are adopted by all financial institutions and that all consumers are enabled by appropriate information, assistance and education to become confident users."