Westpac makes payments more accessible with new card designs

By Leandra Monteiro

Westpac has announced it is rolling out a suite of new card designs to help make payments more accessible for blind or low-vision customers.

The credit, debit and pre-paid cards will incorporate new accessibility elements, including different notches along the short edge to enable customers to distinguish their payment cards from one another using touch alone.

Using Mastercard’s Touch Card™ feature, the notches square for credit card, round for debit cards and triangular for pre-paid cards help customers to identify the card and orient the card correctly when using, such as making payments or using an ATM. The cards will also include a braille marker, providing another tactile feature to help blind or low-vision customers distinguish between credit, debit and prepaid cards.

Westpac Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, Annabel Fribence said, “The features of the new cards are a simple but innovative step forward that will make a big difference in the day-to-day lives of many blind or low-vision Australians. Our strategy is to continue to develop products and services that are accessible to all customers. This builds on a range of initiatives we already have in place such as accessibility mode on all our EFTPOS Now terminals, online applications that meet accessibility requirements and accessible digital card functionality when customers use voice-over and talk back. It’s important to make payments easier for everyone, including customers with vision impairment. Now all Westpac customers can identify their payment cards by either sight or touch.”

Blind Citizens Australia Chief Executive Officer, Sally Aurisch said, “The new card features showcase the simple yet impactful measures that we can take to improve the accessibility of everyday life for people who are blind or vision impaired. Measures like this can go a long way to giving customers who are blind or vision impaired that extra bit of confidence and independence when stepping up to the payment counter. It is encouraging to see such innovative features being used to make accessibility a priority.”

Westpac’s new suite of credit, debit and pre-paid card designs will be progressively rolled out to customers.