Improving Credit Union Accessibility

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The more we connect our businesses and credit unions with patrons and members, the more we realize the complexities of each of their lives and experiences with our brand. That’s why improving credit union accessibility should be a top priority for your physical branches and your digital assets this year.

Credit union accessibility is beneficial to everyone, not just those who struggle with disabilities. The more barriers you remove when it comes to your members accessing information and resources from your CU, the more they’ll want to use your products and services in the future.

We live not only in an age of diversity, but one of convenience. And quite often, organizations must anticipate and remove these barriers before their members ever encounter them. Here are some tips for improving credit union accessibility.

Website Accessibility

We’ve talked a little bit before about the importance of ensuring credit union website accessibility. And the optimization and functionality of your credit union’s website have never been more important than in this post-pandemic, tech-driven landscape.

The NAFCU has a great article that outlines the latest guidance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding website accessibility. The article includes common areas and website programs that create accessibility barriers. These items include things like poor color contrast, content where color is used as the primary means for explaining something – imagine a colorblind user trying to decipher a color-coded pie chart, graph, or infographic for example – lack of alt text on images, videos with no captions, and mouse-only navigation.

Online Forms

Online forms are another area of difficulty for many people with disabilities. If your forms are slightly inconvenient for you or for other abled staff members, then it will be even more difficult when a credit union member with a disability attempts to use them. User experience is a growing area of concern for many websites, as it’s now often the primary way their members and customers are interacting with their brand, products, and services.

IMS Integrations Online Self Service forms are designed to be customizable and integrated solutions to help you collect the information you need from your members in order to process their requests and help then with their online banking needs. We’ve got forms for a wide array of products and services, like check reorders, HELOC adjustments, information requests, lost card notifications, and much more.

Listen to Your Members

Though the DOJ shared some helpful guidelines for increasing website accessibility for your credit union members, it’s important to remember that they are still just guidelines. Websites aren’t all built the same. Many were built from templates or through third-party hosts, and others were customized and built from scratch for your credit union specifically.

Creating narrow, pointed rules for how these websites should look, feel, and operate is impossible. And given the rate at which things change in web development and other digital fields, that won’t be changing.

So, what can you do to ensure that you are giving your members the best experience possible? Ask them! Reviews, feedback forms, and “Contact Us” pages are a great place to start. When things aren’t working for your members, you can bet they’ll take to the world wide web to share their feelings about it.

And when they start talking, make sure you listen. Your brand as a credit union hinges on the loyalty of your members and your reputation as a business. By listening to the concerns of those who are using or wish to use your online resources, you can tailor the experience to fit those needs.

Get in the Habit of Perpetual Optimization

As we said, technology is constantly changing. What may have been the best tool for helping visually impaired credit union members navigate your site last year may have been replaced with newer, better tech this year.

You will still encounter problems with members who are uniquely disabled or wholly uneducated in the finer points of technology and website optimization. However, it’s much harder to try and change a website after it’s built or reworked than it is to move through your next website project with credit union accessibility towards the top of your priority list.

The accessibility of your credit unions and their websites is not only important for legal reasons, but for representation and reputation reasons as well. The more groups of different people you can cater to and provide optimized banking technology to, the more you will find your member engagement and new member numbers growing.

Accessibility through Tech-Based Credit Union Solutions

IMSI offers a handful of elegant, member-facing web solutions that can help drive credit union accessibility in your branches and communities.

From online self service forms to trial balance and online courtesy pay, our solutions are made with your credit union members in mind, and your staff’s ability to easily integrate these new programs into your existing business operations.

If you’d like to learn more about these and other credit union solutions, request a consultation today.

Financial Inclusion & Its Role in Your CU Growth

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Our sister site, IMS, recently featured a blog article discussing ways you can foster financial inclusion within your credit union.

Financial inclusion is part of a larger conversation taking place right now about how individuals and businesses are creating solutions and campaigns that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion for everyone who interacts with their brands.

CUs Are Perfect for Fostering Financial Inclusion

The history of credit unions is one that centers these institutions as a perfect partner in the financial inclusion conversation. Credit unions often serve areas that other banks and financial institutions don’t focus on. This includes marginalized and underserved communities in both urban and rural areas of the country.

As member-owned, not-for-profit businesses, credit unions have the luxury of already being positioned to create solutions that serve communities with specific cultures and religious affiliations, and even areas with specific financial needs.

CUs already work to promote local businesses and local charities. The conversation doesn’t have to be about catering to massive audiences and trying to implement a bunch of one-size-fits-all programs that can help everyone in small ways.

You can create spaces that highlight the cultures and perspectives that most represent and foster the diversity of the communities you’re already serving or are hoping to serve in the future.

Stabilizing Financial Tools

Many areas with diverse populations (both in culture as well as financial situation) will also benefit from the stabilizing financial tools that come from the implementation of financial inclusion practices.

These can be things like helping set up accounts so that those who are receiving government assistance like unemployment are able to access those funds quickly and record them accurately for tax and other financial planning purposes. It can also include things like calculator tools for car or mortgage payments, online self service forms, eStatements, online account opening, and Skip a Pay.

These stabilizing financial tools can help orient members who are still learning how to manage their finances, encourage others to enroll in programs that can help them pay down debt or increase their savings, and so much more.

It Starts with Your Staff

Your credit union’s financial inclusion initiatives should start at the employee level. If your staff members are stressed out about their financial situation, studies have shown that they are actually not as productive at work as employees who work in a place that has achieved most or all of their financial inclusion goals.

Close Gaps in Member Desires vs. CU Offerings

Many of the initiatives that are touted as perfect for fostering financial inclusion are often things that your credit union already offers. But the focus here should be on targeting what your underserved communities, like the unbanked and underbanked, would need from those offerings.

For example, your credit union may already have a successful rewards program that works for current members. However, if offering a different set of rewards or a range of choices in what those rewards can be used for, you can target the underserved segments of your communities.

This is a common business practice across all industries. It’s why we have such a big range of vehicles (from luxury sports cars to reliable and affordable sedans and minivans), restaurants, and other consumer-focused businesses.

Your members who are living paycheck-to-paycheck won’t likely be interested in saving for retirement or creating tons of lines of credit to open a business, but the opportunity to capitalize on your services shouldn’t be reserved solely for those in ideal financial situations.

Catering to the unbanked and underbanked means you have to evaluate why and where your current programs don’t meet these potential members’ needs.

Technology Fosters Financial Inclusion

One of the best tools for fostering financial inclusion is technology. Implementing user-friendly and other helpful digital programs, products, and services goes a long way toward closing gaps between your average members and your outliers.

When you are choosing and implementing these digital tools, it’s important to think about how your members can use them. Are there ways to personalize the process or tool? Customization is a great way to use a single tool in a myriad of ways in order to better serve those who are underrepresented in your member ranks.

Financial Inclusion Means Digital Inclusion

Navigating trending credit union topics have long-lasting implications for your CU. And that’s why you need cutting-edge solutions that have been tailored to credit union needs.

IMSI has created credit union-specific products and services that speak to your customers’ needs, no matter their background, financial situation, or culture. With tools like Make a Statement, Online Courtesy Pay+, Online Self-Service Forms, and Trial Balance+ readily available on your CU website, you can meet every potential member where they’re at.

Reach out to us today and request a consultation.

Web Development for Credit Unions

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In an increasingly digital world, your credit union’s website is the new interactive business card, a source of income, and the main way by which prospective members will judge whether you are the right fit for their financial needs. So let’s talk about web development for credit unions: what to do, what not to do, and more.

Take Advantage of Tracking and Analytics

Your data is only as good as your analysis of it. Data is business gold. It can tell you things about the best times to run certain promotions, the behaviors of different member demographics, and so much more.

When it comes to leveraging your data, you should first break down your credit union goals, and then start collecting data to help give you insight on how to achieve those goals.

End-to-end tracking is also a must. For credit unions, lead tracking and ROI tracking can provide a multi-directional approach to meeting your business goals. Your members and their behaviors can tell you everything you need to know about what products and services you should be offering, and the best methods for doing so.

Prominently Feature Self-Service Options

Typically, people surfing your website are there because of a search or other desire for a product or service brought them here. By prominently featuring self-service options, you give your visitors what they want in a quick and efficient manner.

Online web loan applications, courtesy pay, and other self-service forms are a great way to differentiate your credit union. Many credit unions fail to prominently display self-service opportunities on their websites, and this causes a lot of frustration among visitors. If you are one of the few that takes advantage of this web development for credit unions, it can not only drive more business, but it can also set you apart from other credit unions that are not taking advantage of this web design.

Marketing Trends for 2022

The Financial Brand recently published an article on “How Banks and Credit Unions Are Rethinking Marketing for 2022.” This includes changing up your media mix, reevaluating your marketing budget, and focusing on financial inclusion.

Some of these new trends will affect the web development of your credit union. Members are now more comfortable using multiple banking institutions to help make the most of what they are being offered. The focus now is to be more flexible and innovative, to capture the top spot in your member’s minds. You want them to think of your credit union first. If you aren’t their only financial institution, you should strive to be their favorite.

Don’t Forget about Accessibility

The digital world is one in which many disabilities can become smaller obstacles with the right programming. When you are thinking about web development for your credit union, a great addition to your strategy should be accessibility. Accessibility can be housed within the toggles of your site and can be comprised of things like a “dark mode” setting or designing your online forms to be more accessible. UC Berkeley has a great resource on the top tips for making your website accessible.

Custom Web Development for Your CU

IMS Integration has a wealth of well-honed industry expertise, and we want to use it to create a custom web development plan for your credit union’s needs. We offer everything from online member applications to data extracts and manipulation, third-party integration, and more. Request a consultation today for more information about our credit union solutions.

Tips for Improving Credit Union Member Retention

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Acquiring a new credit union member typically costs between $400 and $700, according to CU 2.0. Depending on different estimates, it takes about 2 years for a banking customer to generate enough revenue for your financial institution to cover that initial cost. And with something like 40% of new customers will churn before the institution makes that money back.

Let’s dive into some tips for improving credit union member retention.

Continue the Relationship

Credit union retention isn’t helped by new member acquisition. Once you’ve wowed a prospective member into joining your CU, it is not the time to pump the breaks on your communication with them.

One of the most crucial ways to improve credit union member retention is to continue the relationship you started. There are tons of ways to accomplish this. You can set up automated email sequences to trigger when members take certain actions – remember that every email doesn’t have to be sales-y. You can share knowledge, educational opportunities, and other worthwhile insights with members to remind them that you are their financial partner, not just a financial service.

Engagement Fosters Retention

This communication doesn’t have to be one-sided: give your members lots of chances to participate in the conversation, too.

Keeping in touch through your members’ life and family changes can encourage them to reach out more readily when they have new and evolving financial needs. Meet them where they are: in the community, on social media, on your website. And be sure to build engagement into your brand’s communications across platforms.

Another great way to foster engagement is by offering surveys. Today’s consumer is very adamant about using their voice to promote the brands they love, and to speak up and advocate for changes they wish to see in a brand.  

Stay Competitive – Especially with Your Technology

Credit unions are no longer the dinosaurs of fintech – they are bringing targeted IT solutions and online offerings that rival big banks. Now more than ever, your member retention depends on the accessibility and user-friendliness of your online products and services.

Update your website and its interfaces. Make sure you promote your online services in easy and convenient formats. Start building a cache of resources – video, written content, reports, and more – that can point members in the right direction when they don’t want to speak to a representative over the phone. And make sure you have great chat capabilities – if it’s not well-done, it can cost you members.

Offer Customization Where It Makes Sense

Big banks can offer more standard services than most credit unions can, but in today’s digital age, people are looking for options. Customization is no longer a preference, it’s a necessity for your members.

This is one of many areas where credit unions’ small business size is advantageous. “People often choose credit unions because these member-owned financial institutions offer more customized products based on member interests,” according to Jrni. This is a perfect opportunity for you to put those surveys we previously mentioned to work!

Consider Online Appointment Booking and Queue Management

Some of the best tech solutions expanded by the COVID-19 pandemic are online booking and queues. Many restaurant and other service-based businesses incorporated online booking and queues into their websites. The pandemic showed us there are better ways to do things.

Having a queue management system allows your members to see why they aren’t being assisted right away, and how long they’ll be waiting for that assistance to reach them. This does two big things: it gives them expectations – which results in less frustration and confusion – and it also allows them some agency. They can rejoin the queue later if it’s too long or if they will be busy before a credit union employee can help them.

Expand Your Credit Union’s Digital Reach

IMS Integration can help improve your credit union online offerings, starting with web loan applications. IMSI’s online loan applications are designed to incorporate your credit union brand and image, and can be designed to collect as much information as you need. We also offer a variety of custom electronic forms, perfect for reaching new members and updating your processes.

Request a consultation today for more information about our credit union solutions.

Human Interface – Fintech with a Personal Touch

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As more and more banking operations go digital, it’s easy to get caught up in the convenience and forget about the human aspect of doing business. And that human aspect, the connection to community and customer, is what sets credit unions apart from other financial institutions. And that’s why creating human interfaces is so important in this age of digital transformation.

Let’s take a look at what a human interface is and the benefits of having this software in your credit union arsenal.

What is a Human Interface?

“Human interface” is a term you have probably not heard as often as “bots” or “intelligent virtual assistants.” But human interfaces mean that these advanced and emerging technologies are learning to look and talk the way real people naturally look and talk. Here’s a quick video that explains the evolution and importance of human interfaces.

Benefits of a Human Interface

While this technology may seem overwhelming at first, there are many benefits to creating technology that better understands and interacts with humans. It means your credit union can more fully serve its customers, even from the comfort of their own home. Here are some of the top benefits of human interfaces.

Anticipate Customer Needs, Based on Common Search Terms and Collected Data

You may be surprised to find out very few credit union and bank customers use bots and virtual assistants for digital support. Technologies have been enhanced in recent years to become more intuitive and user-friendly. These enhancements mean navigating and using your credit union’s website or app is easy for most of your members.

With these improvements, bots and virtual assistants are now using the data they collect on member usage. This can show you exactly what areas customers need assistance with and allow you and your credit union to cater to those needs. You can also use the data to provide more targeted training to your employees based on customer search trends.

Conversational Use is More Effective

Did you know over 30% of the time, “people say ‘hello’ or some other personal greeting when they start interacting with a bot?” Human interface bots seem more human, so customers treat them that way.

The recreation of that “personal touch” human interfaces can replicate means credit union members feel more comfortable using the service, and they continue to reach out via digital assistant to perform many standard or low-level banking functions. This allows your employees more time to handle more difficult or intricate tasks.

The conversational experience in human interface technologies can also help enhance the user experience. It is easier for people to use a computer if they can talk to it. Think about how much easier it is to learn a new app or feature on your phone or smart device when someone is explaining it to you, versus trying to follow written instructions for use.  

Reliability

Human interface solutions are a 24/7 support staff for your credit union. After business hours or during peak customer traffic, your virtual assistant is always “on” and ready to assist, even if your employees are all already assisting customers.

Security

In the same way that online banking is usually very safe, banking operations being run through a bot or virtual assistant that has a human interface and multi-factor authentication also bolster cybersecurity.

Pandemic Health and Safety

Of course, one of the biggest reasons digital solutions like the human interface are getting so much attention this year is because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Human interface, bots, and virtual assistants fill a very specific void your credit union members are experiencing right now: the need for touchless interfaces and the desire for human-centric service that still “maintains efficiency, security, privacy, and choice,” according to this Forbes article.

Take Your CU Tech to the Next Level

Digital solutions are the best way to differentiate your credit union from the rest and serve your customers using the most up-to-date technology.

From eStatements and eNotices to Web Loan Applications, Online Account Opening, and Trial Balance+, IMS Integration can help you serve your customers better with our elegant, member-facing solutions. 

Questions? Contact us today!

Digital Lending and Other 2021 Trends

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Your digital banking solutions are under scrutiny, your member expectations are higher than ever, and your credit union has just come out of one of the toughest years in modern history. Let’s discuss how you’ll get a leg up this year by looking at the top digital and lending trends set to dominate 2021.

Until recently, banking institutions (and credit unions especially) were taking a conservative approach to digital transformation. But COVID-19 showed up and wrecked a lot of plans and protocols in a short amount of time, leaving financial leaders scratching their heads.

However, the new normal is here, and it’s not going anywhere. So what trends should you, as credit union leaders and employees, be pushing in the new year? Let’s break them down.

Digital Lending Solutions

Lending solutions are going to be a hot topic this year. With the amount of financial stress Americans and small businesses have been under since last March, expect to increase small ticket loan offerings. Focusing on low-dollar, short-term, “buy now, pay later” loans – often with zero interest rates – can fill some of the holes left by the 2020 economic downturn.

Lending also needs to go digital. This includes self-service and online options. With or without COVID, Millennials and Gen Z prefer to handle as much of their life and lifestyle as possible through remote channels.

It may seem strange, but these digital darlings are more likely to patronize your credit union if they never have to step foot inside it! This means creating and managing these online offerings as well as increasing machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities.

There are many advantages of digital lending:

  • Optimized User Experience – digital lending programs put the power back in your customers’ hands.
  • Increased Efficiency – digital lending also streamlines the lending process and creates shorter turnaround times.
  • Digital Channels Mean More Analytics – when all of your lending information is stored and handled digitally, it gives you the opportunity to analyze all that data and create intelligent, tailored banking solutions for your members.

Small Business Relationships

Another focus area in the banking industry this year will be recapturing small businesses. Credit unions already set themselves up for success in this area last year by participating in PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans. The program helped many small businesses keep their doors open during this trying time. It also created an avenue for small-to-midsized banks and credit unions to lend to businesses that were ineligible for other big bank-sponsored programs.

‘Financial Health’ Focus

Financial health is going to be a heavily leveraged topic in 2021 as well because the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all how badly financial unpreparedness can cripple our lives and economy.

Credit unions are in a great position to tackle this topic, however. Bigger banks tend not to offer comprehensive or tailored financial wellness and education resources. Credit unions have been doing that for decades already.

To take advantage of this trend, banks and credit unions will take advantage of virtue-signaling efforts to craft customer-facing messages that are more socially conscious.

These empathy-based messages will also cater to the direction of the changing White House administration.

Start Your Digital Lending Journey with Web Loan Applications

IMS Integration can help you create a seamless transition to digital lending and other online services:

  • Infuzion: This powerful tool was developed to streamline complex functions without spending hours developing scripts.
  • Web Loan Applications: Loans are critical to your credit union’s success. Enhance your member experience by implementing our online loan applications system, which tightly integrates with KeyStone core.

If you want to explore our offerings further, or you have questions about our solutions, contact us today.

2020 In Review for Credit Unions

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The pandemic and other disasters caused a lot of uncertainty for your members and employees this year. As 2020 comes to a close, it’s important for leaders to review what they’ve learned so they can prepare for 2021. 

Here are the top insights credit unions have learned this year:

Members Need Digital Experiences

When the world locked down and started working remotely, members flocked to your credit union’s digital services. What was once seen as conveniences became needs, but your members still craved customization and personalization through your digital services and remote communication styles. They demanded improved digital experiences. 

In addition to increased phone volume and, potentially, the unveiling of video chatting at your credit union, your members increased the use of your website and mobile app. Website accessibility became even more valuable to serve more of your members.

As we’ve said before, “The digital member experience needs to be as close as possible to an all-encompassing, no limits, one-on-one discussion about the many products and programs your credit union offers.”

You may have seen a need to improve your software and digital infrastructure throughout this season. But those improvements don’t end with 2020. It’s imperative that credit unions continue to optimize the digital experience for their members on an ongoing basis. 

Related resources from our sister company, Information Management Solutions:

Cybersecurity is Increasingly Important

Credit unions across the nation, among other businesses, are finding that cybersecurity is critical for the well-being of their business and to keep their members’ data secure. 

We’ve known for a while that cybercriminals don’t discriminate who they attack and that not all cyber threats have malicious intent, but this year has made it even harder for smaller credit unions to keep up with the security demands placed on them, especially when transitioning to WFH environments. 

We previously summed this up as “Cybersecurity in 2020 is even more important than it was in past years because financial institutions can’t afford to be breached or hacked during these uncertain times.”

At the end of this year, one thing is clear: if your credit union hasn’t already, it’s time to strengthen your cybersecurity initiatives. 

Related resources from our sister company, Information Management Solutions:

Members Require a Better Experience

Your members want more. Their needs are always changing. As younger generations join credit unions and as time moves forward, member expectations change. This is especially true for 2020 as members’ needs changed practically overnight.

This year, credit unions helped their members use self-service options and embrace digital services. Your employees quickly felt the loss of that in-person community that is created within a normal credit union environment – and everyone on your team knew that many members felt the same loss.  

Customer service became less about benefits and more about personalizing the customer experience, even while working remotely. As we prepare for and head into 2021, it’s important to continue improving the member experience across the board. 

Related resources from our sister company, Information Management Solutions: 

Prepare for 2021

At the end of the day, your credit union is constantly working on ways to better serve your members. Members continue to be the most important focus for a credit union’s efforts, from the leadership team to each member service representative. For this reason, all of these insights that credit union leaders have learned over the year are important to take into 2021. 

Like you serve your members, our team at IMS Integration is here to serve you. Contact us to learn more about how we can help your credit union.

It’s Time to Optimize Your Digital Member Experience

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Historically, credit unions have been regarded as slow to innovate when it comes to new technology. But 2020 is no ordinary year, and credit unions are recognizing the power of this rapid change and its value as we move towards an ever-evolving and heavily digital future. It’s time to optimize your digital member experience.

Digital Member Experience Is More than Fast Processing Times

This year has exponentially enhanced the ability of every industry to churn out large-scale digital solutions to compete with stay-at-home orders and social distancing policies. But the unintended result of this is an overwhelming preference, from customers and bank members, to have these services optimized and available in the future, no matter how long this pandemic lasts.

But digital solutions aren’t as easy to implement as a plexiglass partition or extra customer service associates. The easier the digital solution is for the customer to use, the more difficult and intricate the behind-the-scenes setup can be for IT and third-party software engineers.

Here are some tips and solutions for improving the digital member experience.

Enhance Chat Abilities with Video

Video chatting is now commonplace, for people of all ages. Young children are on Zoom for virtual classroom time, and elderly credit union members are hopping on Telehealth calls with their doctors. Why not incorporate video appointments in your credit union’s offerings?

Integrating a video chat option through your online banking website and app can bring back that personal, one-on-one customer service that has been slowly fading as we continue to practice safe social distancing.

It’s also a great way to introduce your already-tech-savvy members with your newest “upgrades” – you can use the video call to not only answer customer questions but to also keep them in the loop on the latest changes to the digital member experience.

Increase Customization in the Digital Member Experience

No matter how much you digitize, there will always be members who prefer that personal touch. This approach is something credit unions all over the country are most known for – their commitment to take care of and be an essential part of the communities they serve.

That same “perfect fit” feel can largely be replicated online if your credit union offers solutions that can be tailored either to your members’ preferences or manipulated by your members themselves.

Custom web development allows you to tell developers exactly what your credit union’s digital member experience should be, with web solutions ranging from online member applications to integration with third-party tools.

Ease of Use Is a Difficult, But Crucial Feature

Many customers, regardless of where they do their banking, are always looking for insights, shortcuts, and transparency. Increasing transaction visibility and speed are things many people are coming to expect – think of the one-click payment options on retail sites like Amazon.

The digital member experience needs to be as close as possible to an all-encompassing, no limits, one-on-one discussion about the many products and programs your credit union offers. One way you can do this is by recreating as many lending and other credit unions forms online.

IMSI Has A Variety of Software Solutions For You

At IMS Integration, we can create tailored software solutions for your credit union. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you.

Ensuring Accessibility on Your Credit Union’s Website

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Litigation is still developing around what should be considered ADA compliant on a website. Testing those developments in the credit union industry is complex, and many credit unions don’t take the time to truly focus on all the areas of ADA compliance on their websites. The litigation around these standards isn’t solid as the DOJ has not set new regulations, so some companies may find themselves at the center of a lawsuit when they don’t provide properly accessible website features.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established a set of guidelines for accessibility known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. These guidelines determine three different levels of conformance, from A (the lowest) to AAA (the highest). The WCAG 2.0 Level AA guidelines promote four principles. 

A website must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust:

  • Perceivable: Users must be able to perceive website elements. Text alternatives for non-text content, alternatives for video and audio content, captions, and more.
  • Operable: Make all “functionality” on a website available via keyboard (for example, some website users cannot use a traditional computer mouse).
  • Understandable: Language on a website should be noted in the HTML so assistive technologies can translate.
  • Robust: All content must be robust to be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, like assistive technologies. For example, markup languages should have proper nesting, start and end tags, no duplicate attributes. In short, HTML and CSS should be clean and tidy.

These are still voluntary technical standards as the Department of Justice has not officially established new regulations. 

Since your branch employees can still be the primary point of contact, you’ll want to ensure that your website remains a solid resource that can serve all customers. 

Part of being a more accessible credit union is finding the right partner to create an accessible experience on your website for all members. We don’t specifically test your website for ADA compliance, but we can improve the elements of your website so you can better reach and support your customers. 

For example, our online self-service forms offer a fully integrated, customizable solution that incorporates your credit union’s brand and image. This fast, secure interface also provides a streamlined user experience that will help to keep your members happy. In addition, we offer custom web development to service any of your unique needs. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, don’t hesitate to get in touch.