financial advice

Accessible Financial Solutions: Accessible Financial Advice - Disability Discrimination

We believe there is no difference in the financial advice services needs and advice requirements of the sighted, partially sighted, unsighted, deaf, hearing impaired, wheelchair users or able bodied.  This is a fact that is sadly missed in the financial services industry.

Accessible Financial Advice and Financial Solutions

W3C and WAI

We are committed to making us and our sites the most accessible independent financial advice service in the United Kingdom if not the World and we fully support World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines called the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the UK's Disability Discrimination Act requirements.  Our websites have been designed to meet the WAI recommendations and we are delighted to have achieved Level 2 for the site with many pages at Level 3.  Given the size of our site at over 5,000 pages and the features, we have worked extremely hard to achieve this result.

We have made provision for accessible independent financial advice for people with:

• Sight difficulties,  Hearing difficulties and Physical difficulties

Keyboard Shortcuts - Windows PC:

• Internet Explorer - press and hold the "ALT" key and the shortcut key together, release and then press "ENTER".
• Mozilla/Netscape - press the "SHIFT", "ALT" and shortcut keys together and release.

Keyboard Shortcuts - Apple Macs:

• Mozilla/Netscape - press the "Control" and then press the shortcuts key.

Shortcut Keys:

• H - Return to Home Page
• A - View the Accessibility page
• N - Jump to the main navigation of the page
• S - Jump to the main content of the page

For Sight Impaired, Colour Blindness and Dyslexia - Colour Options and High Visibility Option

Need An Adviser can be viewed in a high-visibility format that has been specifically designed to assist those who are sight impaired or suffer from word blindness or colour blindness.  You are able to switch between high-visibility (dark) and standard visibility (white) options at any time and in any part of the sites at the top of the page.

If you do not like our default colour scheme, we have other options as well as a high visibility option

Turn High-Visibility ON    Turn High-Visibility OFF


Your Browser Accessibility

Need An Adviser can be viewed and has been tested on a wide rangee of internet browsers.  We have tested the pages of the site using the following more popular browsers:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6.0 and 7.0
• Netscape Navigator Version 9
• Mozilla FireFox 2.0 and 3.0
  

Large Text

All our downloadable guides are available in large text versions.

Audio

All our downloadable guides are available in spoken, audio format.

Binding Contract and Financial Applications

We have agreed standard procedures with many insurance, pension and investment companies on their requirements for accepting completed application forms from individuals with sight impairment.

Customers with Hearing Impairment

• Email and Messenger - you can contact us using email and various messenger services such as skype, icq and netmeeting.   Contact us to request this service.
• Typetalk - you can telephone us using Typetalk starting with prefix 18001 followed by our dedicated line 01543 672555.
• RNID Interpreter - we can arrange for a RNID Interpreter to be present for face to face meetings free of charge.

Customers with Physical Difficulties - Accessible Offices

We have improved our offices to make access easier for all.  Our offices have also been designed with the following features:

• Ground floor accessible private meeting rooms
• Ground floor accessible washrooms
• Wide doors
• Level, laminate and hard floors for wheelchair access
• Temporary ramp access
• Power sockets and telephone sockets at waist height
• Improved, meter tested, lighting

We can also travel and meet with you at home or work.

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