Accessibility Directive/ European Accessibility Act (EAA).

From June 28, 2025, the Accessibility Directive will come into force:

People with disabilities

This European Directive contains regulations to make products and (online) services accessible to people with disabilities.

This European Union directive, has been transposed into national law, accommodated in various laws, such as the Financial Supervision Act and Consumer Protection Enforcement Act, and thus applies as of June 28, 2025. The Accessibility Directive requires products and services to be accessible to persons with disabilities. Minimum standards for accessibility are established with the directive.

What products and services will the directive apply to?

The Accessibility Directive will apply to the following products and services marketed after June 28, 2025, among others:

• ordinary consumer computing devices and operating systems for those devices;
• self-service terminals, such as ATMs and ticket machines;
• e-books and e-readers and specific software for them;
• e-commerce services; that is, websites and web stores;
• information when taking out a phone subscription or internet subscription;
• computers and software for on the computer;
• ticket machines for buying (public) transport tickets;
• banking services for consumers such as online banking and taking out loans and mortgages
  (mobile) phones;
• websites and apps for watching movies

All the above-mentioned products and services marketed after June 28, 2025 must also be accessible to people with disabilities.

For whom

Persons with disabilities are defined in the directive as persons with long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments who face various barriers to interaction that may prevent them from participating fully, effectively and equally with others in society.

In order to make things accessible, consider

1. subtitles,
2. a read-aloud function,
3. adjustable brightness,
4. adjustable colours,
5. font size or sound,
6. But also simple language on websites and in user manuals. That simple language should certainly apply to banking services. That information should have a maximum language level of B2.

Purpose of the guideline:

The aim is to also make it easier for people with, for example, a visual, hearing or other (cognitive) impairment to independently conclude products or services via websites or apps. According to the AFM, one of the Dutch regulators of the provisions of this directive, some 5.5 million people (32%) in the Netherlands live with one or more disabilities, in Europe it is 101 million people (27%).

Accessibility principles:

The directive gives four accessibility principles for websites, apps and other online applications. Those accessibility principles are:

• Operable
  • The website is easy to use. With a mouse, a keyboard, a screen reader and by voice control.
• Observable
  • The text should be easy to read by being able to adjust text size, font and contrast.
• Understandable
  • It is easy to find your way around, such as finding the particular information or placing an order.
• Robust
  • The content can be reliably interpreted by various technologies such as screen readers and other tools.

All products sold in the European Union must comply with this accessibility directive. The legislation makes no difference between products made in the European Union or outside it. Proper certification is therefore very important!

Directive does not apply to:

This Directive does not apply to the following content of websites and mobile applications:

• pre-recorded, time-based media published before 28 June 2025;
• office file formats published before 28 June 2025;
• online maps and mapping services, if essential information is provided in an accessible, digital manner in the case of maps intended for navigation;
• third-party content that is not funded, developed or controlled by the relevant operator;
• content of websites and applications based on mobile devices that can be classified as archives, meaning that they only contain content that is not updated or modified after 28 June 2025.

Regulators:

Several regulators have been appointed to oversee the EAA directive.

These include:

the Consumer & Market Authority,
the National Digital Infrastructure Inspectorate,
the Environment and Transport Inspectorate, and
the Financial Markets Authority (AFM).

The AFM is the competent authority for the supervision of online accessibility banking services and other financial services over the internet. The scope of the EAA is broad and applies to the majority of providers of financial products and services.

Penalties:

What if a regulator finds that a product covered by this directive does not meet the applicable accessibility requirements? That should be evident from an assessment of the product concerned. Then the economic operator concerned would first be given the opportunity to ‘take appropriate corrective action without delay to bring the product into conformity with these requirements within a reasonable period, commensurate with the nature of the non-conformity, to be determined by them’.

If the economic operator does not comply - i.e. no measures are taken to ensure that the product does comply - the authority may impose sanctions. These may include the imposition of an order under penalty to adapt a product, but also fines, or even, in the worst case, the authority may impose that the product be withdrawn from the market.

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