Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, along with solo practitioner Lainey Feingold, represent the California Council for the Blind, other affiliates of the American Council of the Blind, and several individuals with visual impairments in structured negotiations with many of the nation’s largest banking institutions. In the past several years, we have negotiated separate agreements with Bank of America, Bank One/Chase/Washington Mutual, Citibank, First Union (Wachovia), and Wells Fargo to guarantee that persons with visual impairments have access to basic banking services that the sighted world takes for granted.
The Bank of America settlement agreement requires the bank to install “talking ATMs” that provide audible instructions for completing all essential banking transactions, including withdrawals from, deposits to, and transfers between customers’ checking, savings, and market rate accounts. There are over 16,000 Bank of America talking ATMs installed across the United States. The Bank of America settlement agreement also requires the bank to provide alternative formats (including Braille, Large Print, audio and/or electronic formats) for printed banking materials at no extra cost to customers with visual impairments and to make its website and on-line banking comply with Priorities 1 and 2 the World Wide web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0.
On May 4, 2016 , Bank of America announced a comprehensive initiative to improve the accessibility of its mortgage information for its blind and visually impaired customers. Read the press release announcing the accessible mortgage initiative.