Inclusive banking is one concept that financial sector leaders are never tired of discussing. But in practice, not much is being done to advance the practice and improve the banking experience of customers, especially the blind and visually impaired customers of banks. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) exclusion of braille feature in naira banknotes design and failure of banks to include Braille and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) features in internet/mobile banking applications and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) for visually impaired are pain-points that erode confidence in the financial system. Assistant Editor COLLINS NWEZE captures blind customers’ pains in accessing financial services and stakeholders’ inability to meet their demands.
Olurotimi Olubodede, a Ph.D. student at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Nasarawa State, is not interested in any of the N5.01 trillion naira notes circulating in Nigeria. To him, they are merely pieces of paper—unidentifiable and unusable for meeting the banking needs of the visually impaired.
Olubodede, who is blind, is frustrated that the interests of approximately 1.2 million Nigerians, born blind or who became blind over the course of their lives, are overlooked in key financial sector policies, including the design of the naira. He lamented that current banknotes lack tactile or other features that would make them accessible to the blind. This omission adds to the numerous barriers that make it difficult for visually impaired individuals in Nigeria to access financial services.
A Lecturer in the Mass Communication Department at Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo State, Olubodede said he intends to sustain the fight against the restriction or outright denial of banking services for the blind through advocacy and dialogue with banks and regulatory institutions. “Being born blind yet educated, I have experienced almost everything life could offer—the good, the bad, and the ugly,” he said. “I will continue to speak for visually impaired customers who are often neglected and unheard in this country.”
Olubodede argued that discrimination based on visual impairment—including denial of equal access to financial services—not only violates universal human rights but also undermines business performance and economic growth. He emphasised that blind individuals are integral to building stronger economies, and there is a clear business case for their inclusion. “With the advent of technology, everyone else is enjoying seamless banking services except the blind. We have repeatedly urged banks, including the major ones, to invest in technology that protects our accounts and enables independent transactions, but to no avail,” he lamented.
Although he cannot see, Olubodede is acutely aware of the emergence of fast, secure, and seamless digital banking services. He recounted an incident at the Ikare, Akoko branch of a new-generation bank in Ondo State, where he was initially denied a replacement ATM card because he could not produce a work ID. The branch manager eventually issued the card but noted, “I am issuing this card because of your working place.” Olubodede concluded that the visually impaired are routinely denied access to quality, technology-driven services, and in the rare cases when such services are provided, the conditions often compromise their safety and the security of their funds.
State of the industry
The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, announced that Nigeria has extended its Payment System Vision roadmap from 2020 to 2028, reflecting an ambitious commitment to modernize the country’s payments infrastructure and strengthen cybersecurity. He noted that more than 12 million contactless payment cards are now in circulation. Additionally, the regulatory sandbox has expanded to include over 40 fintech innovators, providing a platform for safe experimentation and the responsible scaling of new digital finance solutions. “Revised agent banking guidelines have tightened anti money laundering controls, including geo fencing of high risk areas, while improving consumer protection at the last mile. Integration across switching companies has improved, bringing Nigeria closer to seamless domestic interoperability,” he said.
According to Cardoso, Nigeria, supported by these measures, currently stands among Africa’s most advanced digital payments markets, with a dynamic fintech ecosystem that has produced eight of the continent’s nine unicorns. He added that by mid-2025, leading fintech apps had surpassed 10 million downloads each, with one surpassing 50 million downloads, reflecting deep consumer adoption
Despite these milestones, findings showed that the visually impaired customers of Wema Bank, Access Bank, Ecobank Nigeria, Fidelity Bank, Unity Bank, Union Bank, Keystone Bank, among others have continued to complain about the quality of services they receive from the banks. Many of these banks have stopped Interactive Voice Response (IVR) otherwise known as telephone banking for the blind to save cost. They also deny blind customers opportunity to have access to ATM cards. Aside from technology deprivation, many banks prevent them from entering their banking halls with guide-cane or white-cane meant for them to navigate their ways. The banks are also denying visually impaired customers access to loans, even when they have collaterals.
More victims narrate their experiences
National President, Nigeria Association of the Blind (NAB), Stanley Onyebuchi, agrees with Olubodede. For him, banks have failed to ensure the services they provide align with the lifestyle of all categories of customers. Onyebuchi listed the inability of visually impaired customers to access ATM cards, banks’ apps not developed with features that support their use by visually impaired customers and outright denial of banking services to his members. “We have written twice to the CBN itemising these complaints but got no rely. It is unfortunate that the apex bank is not doing enough to ensure that banks provide the right services to the visually impaired customers.
“Our members have continued to complain about banks refusing to issue them ATM cards. In the United States, and United Kingdom, and other advanced countries, the story is different. In those countries, a visually impaired cardholder will just insert his/her headphone, and the ATM will be telling him/her what to do until the transaction is completed,” he said.
According to him, “the visually impaired also have challenge using writing pen and the Nigerian banks are not accepting thumb printing. Many of us have irregular signature, unless we use stamp, which also carries its own risks of being used by third parties. Many of us cannot afford android phones to be able to read bank alerts on our phones. For the visually impaired, banking has become a nightmare,” he said.
David Okon, a visually impaired customer and Executive Member, NAB, said it is unfortunate that some banks are asking visually impaired customers to complete an indemnity form, that is stamped in the court before an account can be opened for them. He said: “Why will banks impose such huge cost on their visually impaired customers? Something they cannot do to other customers who have no such disabilities. We are working to ensure that such practice stops to allow everyone easy access to financial services.”
Okon, a staff of one of the Tier-1 banks in Nigeria, also narrated how some banks deny visually impaired customers access to internet banking and ATM services. He said: “The challenge is that the banking system does not have uniform policy on how to serve visually impaired customers. The services we get depend on which bank branch one visits, who the customer service person is and his/her dispositions. There is no binding policy that guides financial services provision to the visually impaired.”
Mrs. Patience Okafor, a member NAB, narrated her experiences with her banks. “If I don’t fill my pay slip before I walk into the banking hall, getting someone to do it for me is going to be a challenge. Another problem is access to the bank. Some of us move with the guide canes which cannot pass the electric doors installed at the entrance of the banking halls,” she said. Continuing, Mrs. Okafor said sometimes, she had to drop her cane behind, or talk to the security personnel to disable the entrance door before she can go in with the cane.
A visually impaired customer of Access Bank and Convener, Hope and Life for Disabled Persons Foundation (HALFDIPEF), Abiodun Erugbaju, spoke on horrendous experience he had during one of his visits to the bank. “How would you feel when you discover that there are no voice guidance and tactile keyboards on the ATMs your bank expects you to use. Or there is no screen reading software in terms of online banking that enables the computer to speak everything that appears on the screen. Or hearing a customer service officer ask a colleague, who will be operating the bank account for him?” These, he said, were some of his experiences in banks, almost on daily basis.
He went further: “Sadly though, the customer service officer was not even asking me directly, she was asking a colleague. When I heard it, I felt bad, and quickly told her that the question was ridiculous. If you want to ask this type of question, you should ask me. Not a third party that does not know about me. She is not my brother or someone that knows me. “Asking a stranger who will be operating my account for me is derogatory. Which means I can’t do that even as a master’s degree holder? I brought out four different ATM cards and told the customer service officer that the card she has just given me will make it the fifth that I have at the moment. Then, I told her that she had just insulted me by that question,” Erugbaju narrated.
Erugbaju said although the CBN has consistently advised banks and financial institutions to provide ATMs that are accessible to and independently useable by individuals who are blind, the banks have largely ignored the directive. “There should be more sensitization of the visually impaired and other members of the society on the workings of digital payment. I have not seen that level of seriousness on the part of the CBN educating people with sight, left alone the visually impaired,” he said.
Also speaking, a visually civil servant based in Lagos, Mrs. Zaria Abdul, said there are so many things she wanted the financial sector to improve on. She said she cannot use the ATMs because of difficulties in accessing the keys, adding that banks should put some signs on the ATM that identify the numbers on the keypad and well as the notes. “I was at Wema Bank the other time, and I had to call the security man to assist me with my account number. And you know the account number is supposed to be private, but I have to disclose it just to get the transaction done,” she said.
According to her, adding Interactive Voice Response will make it easier for visually impaired customers to listen and follow instructions in carrying out their transactions, instead of relying on third parties. Mrs. Abdul said although she has not been a victim of ATM fraud, many of her friends have been defrauded by the very people they trusted with their ATM cards and PINs.
A member of the Disability Policy and Advocacy Initiative (DPAI), Moses Adigun, who is also blind, supported Erugbayi’s argument saying the banks need to provide software tools that would enable them use internet banking facilities. He said the ATMs are not well equipped for the blind. He said that the banking halls not accessible, with many of them with inadequately measured ramps, and greater number without any.
“The ATMs are not equipped to give me my account balances, buy air airtime, pay utility bills among other services,” he said. For him such inadequacies have discouraged him from using the banks adding that bank notes are not recognisable to the blind.
“Look at the polymer notes we are using now. I don’t know how to differentiate between N5, N10, N20 and N50. They all have same texture and feature. As far as I am concerned, they are all the same. If the CBN wants to create the needed features, it can do it. But the bitter truth is that they do not even think that some people are disabled. We are the ones affected, but some of them may be disabled one day. Challenges can visit anybody just like rain can fall at any time without announcements,” he said.
Michael Kamya, Executive Director of the Union for the Blind, which operates in Lagos and Nairobi, Kenya, also recounted his experience with Barclays Bank Uganda, where his request for a $10,000 salary advance loan was declined. He said: “I applied for a loan and they said your organisation did not qualify when we did the qualification sampling. Then I said no problem, I am not qualified, but one of my staff who is not disabled applied for the loan and got it. I am the chief executive officer of the organisation where she works, how come I was not qualified? What is the problem so that I rectify it so that other staff will not be denied when they apply?
“They said I was just not qualified. Then I said, can you put what you are telling me in writing? The bank said no. Then, I contacted my lawyer who wrote them. They sensed there was big trouble when I kept writing them, up to three times. They gave me the loan. I was contemplating dragging them to court before they responded. They just sensed I was on the move.”
Kamya, who spoke while attending a conference in Ikeja, Lagos, called for continuous advocacy to draw the attention of the authorities to the various challenges faced by Persons with Disability, especially the blind. He said challenges faced by the blind differ from bank to bank, but the issues have to do with discrimination, poor customer services and outright denial of banking services. “Some banks don’t think that I am eligible to have a bank account. Some banks do not accept thumb prints thereby excluding the blind that may not be able to sign with a pen. Sometimes, it may have to do with ignorance by the staff of the banking institution. Some banks even think that as a visually impaired person, one is not entitled to a loan. There are also issues around bank notes not being accessible to blind users who will not be able to differentiate one currency from another. I have seen these practices in Lagos, Kenya and Uganda,” Kamya stated.
Views from other stakeholders
President of the Bank Customers Association of Nigeria, Dr. Uju Ogubunka, said banks are not doing enough to ensure that visually impaired persons are financially included. He said banks should make messages about their products and services available to the blind in a manner they can understand them. He called on stakeholders to work towards ensuring the effective inclusion of the blind in empowerment programmes that would have positive behavioural change on their relationship with banks.
Ogubunka, who was also former Registrar, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), said the exclusion of the visually impaired from the design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of government policies on key issues that affect their lives is highly disturbing. He said there is also need to include the visually impaired persons in national and state strategic plans and other relevant policy documents on banking operations, telecom and reproductive health, which he said, constitute major concern to stakeholders. For him, Nigeria banks can develop homegrown solution to provide quality services to their visually impaired customers. The banks, he added, can also borrow ideas from advanced countries on how they are meeting the banking needs of their blind customers.
A source in Ecobank Nigeria who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter said the bank’s ATMs have voice prompt that enables visually impaired customers to carry out their transactions seamlessly. “Our online plan is to accommodate people with disabilities and ensure they have the best of services. All the Ecobank ATMs nationwide will have voice prompt,” the source said.
For Erugbaju, what is needed is stakeholders’ dialogue, adding that sitting back and making policies without talking to those directly affected by it, will not produce the desired results. According to Kamya, governments at all levels need to be consulting with disabled persons when making policies that affect their lives and finances. “We have a slogan that says ‘Nothing for Us Without Us’ meaning that we are the better advocates for ourselves. So, we need to be part of whatever policies that are designed for us. There is also need for more sensitisation in the banking sector so that their staff look at us as human beings,” he advised.
Other stakeholders advocated for the inclusivity and accessibility of blind people’s needs, not just to banking services but also to information, safe use of public infrastructure, public transport system, access to qualitative and functional inclusive education, attainment of fully independent living, inclusion into political and socio-economic activities among others to promote equitable and sustainable society.
