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Why Financial Services Need Truly Accessible Communications

The finance sector faces a critical challenge: ensuring clear communication for every customer. This is a core expectation of the FCA Consumer Duty, which demands that firms deliver good outcomes for all retail customers. But for a very large number of customers, the way financial information is presented is a very significant barrier.

Customers with learning disabilities, low literacy levels, limited English proficiency, or other communication needs face particular challenges. Standard "plain English" often falls short for them. The FCA’s March 2025 review of firms’ treatment of vulnerable customers found that firms were often providing information that was too complex, lengthy, or generic, failing to meet the diverse needs of vulnerable customers. This led to vulnerable customers not understanding key information or making informed decisions, resulting in poor outcomes. This highlights a significant, ongoing gap in accessible communications.

The challenge for the finance sector is huge. The National Literacy Trust report that 18% of working-age adults, or 6.6 million people have "very poor literacy skills." A very substantial part of the market needs information presented in a fundamentally different way to truly understand it.

High-Quality Easy Read: A Strategic Imperative

Effective Easy Read goes beyond simplifying words; it’s a carefully crafted solution requiring expertise. It combines clear, concise text with purpose-designed illustrations, and is co-produced and quality-checked by people with lived experience of communication barriers. This comprehensive approach offers clear business benefits for FCA-regulated firms:

  • Boosts Consumer Understanding: Empowers customers with learning disabilities and diverse communication needs to actually understand your communications. The result can be real comprehension, not just simplified exposure.

  • Mitigates Conduct Risk: Reducing misunderstandings directly supports Consumer Duty compliance. It lowers the risk of complaints, regulatory scrutiny, and potential fines related to poor customer outcomes caused by unclear communications.

  • Enhances Trust & ESG: Demonstrates a genuine commitment to financial inclusion and social value. This strengthens customer relationships, improves your organisation's Environmental, Social, and Governance standing, and boosts brand reputation.

  • Supports All Customers: Its clarity benefits a wide range of individuals, including neurodiverse customers, those with limited English, or anyone who simply prefers clearer, more visual communication. (Here our lived experience project worker provides a personal perspective on varied communication needs)

  • Empowers Support Networks: Easy Read materials are invaluable to support persons (carers, family, and advocates) in explaining financial information clearly and ensuring the customer can make informed choices.

Partnering with CHANGE for Authentic Accessibility

Navigating the complexities of digital and financial information for diverse audiences requires specialist knowledge and a deep understanding of user needs. CHANGE brings over 25 years of experience in co-producing high-quality accessible communications. Our ‘nothing about us without us’ philosophy ensures that we create truly accessible PDFs and other digital media that are fully WCAG compliant and genuinely fit for purpose.

Our Words to Pictures team, our Experts by Experience, are central to this. They are involved at every stage, from testing content to validating our work. This collaborative approach ensures that our solutions are grounded in real-world understanding, not just assumptions.

For example, we partnered with Zurich Insurance to create an Easy Read explanation. Our expertise in navigating sensitive and complex topics for vulnerable audiences is also evidenced by our collaboration with Warwick University on their ReSPECT research. We always ensure our Easy Read meticulously avoids jargon and hard-to-understand terms, which is critical to meeting the needs of vulnerable finance customers.

Your Next Step to Accessible Financial Communications

Adopting high-quality Easy Read is more than a regulatory obligation; it is a strategic advantage. It demonstrates your organisation's empathy and determination to tackle digital and financial exclusion, setting you apart as a leader in customer-centricity.

Discover how CHANGE can help your organisation improve its communications, empower its customers, and achieve a clear competitive advantage in inclusivity and customer experience.

  • Our expert team of experienced designers create clear, engaging, and inclusive Easy Read communications that adhere to your brand guidelines and meet your high standards.

  • Subscribing to our Easy Read Image Bank gives you access to guides, tutorials, and over 2000 hand-drawn high quality images showcasing a diverse and inclusive range of people, enabling you to create your own high quality easy read content.

  • Our lived experience team of people with learning disabilities provide quality assurance through accessible review.

  • For more information about how we can help you deliver effective communications to vulnerable customers, please call us, email [email protected], or fill out the form below.