Citibank has launched a sixteen-month programme to install a talking ATM at each of the bank's financial centres and ATM centres across the country, beginning in New York and California.
The ATMs, using text-to-speech technology, deliver audible information privately through an earphone so that persons who are blind, or who may otherwise have difficulty reading an ATM screen in print, can independently use the ATM.
The programme is the result of a collaborative effort that began when members of the blind community approached Citibank to discuss how the company's ATMs could be programmed to communicate audibly with blind and low vision consumers.