Dutch banks sign Digital Inclusion Manifest

The Manifest was signed during a dialogue session that was hosted by Princess Laurentien and that included experts by experience, representatives of social interest groups and staff and directors of banks.
Five building blocks for digital inclusion

Signing the Digital Inclusion Manifest means agreeing to five essential building blocks:

Prioritising the right people

Offering sufficient access to technology

Building a strong support network

Giving people the skills and awareness to participate

Advocating the importance of digital inclusion.

ADS programme manager Wietske Kamsma comments, “Working together will help us to reduce the digital gap and create a society where no-one is left behind. This collective approach by the banks demonstrates that they’re eager to take on this responsibility towards society.”
Experts by experience

Whenever they develop new products, services and policies, the parties signing the Manifest will structurally draw on input from experts by experience, including people whose digital skills are weak. This approach adds indispensable value for aligning with users’ needs and requirements.

“Everyone should have access to financial services,” explains NVB president Medy van der Laan. “We’ve studied what groups of people need help with this. These groups can be very diverse, and even when we gear our efforts towards them, we have no guarantee that we’ll actually reach them. The barriers are many and often unseen: fear or embarrassment can make people avoid situations where they struggle. That’s something that we need to take into account.”

The banks will actively promote digital inclusion, working together with civil society organisations that are associated with ADS. This will make a substantial contribution to ADS’s goal of making sure that as many people as possible can keep up as society continues to become more digitalised.

The banking sector’s programme Toegankelijk Bankieren (‘banking made accessible’) includes a range of different initiatives. For example, the sector has worked together to design a simple ‘accessibility route’. This will make it easier for banking clients and their helpers to find their way to the best support for their banking and payment questions. Another important initiative is that banks are updating their websites and apps so that clients in vulnerable positions can use them without assistance as much as possible.
Successful pilot with bank information centres

A pilot with bank information centres is underway to investigate how banks’ clients can be helped on location, in face-to-face conversations, to become as independent as possible with their payments and banking. An initial pilot at 19 diverse locations in 11 towns and cities in the Netherlands was completed in September.

Two important findings from that initial pilot are that both visitors and information providers were very pleased, but that almost every information centre received far fewer visitors than expected. The results from the first pilot are now being used to prepare a second pilot, which will launch early next year. The partnership with ADS and its associated organisations will help to better reach the intended groups and draw more visitors to the information centres.