Westpac 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 card and triangular for pre-paid card - 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, says: “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."