Championing financial inclusion: UBA introduces Braille Account Opening Form for visually impaired clients.

The move will enable them to independently initiate and complete account opening processes as well as ensure their seamless integration into the financial system.

Dubbed: “UBA Braille Account Opening Form”, the initiative, which is the first of its kind in the Nigerian and African markets, was launched at the UBA Head Office in Lagos last June 27. Present at the launch were key executives of the bank and guest.

The UBA Braille Account Opening Form is designed specifically to cater to the financial needs of visually impaired persons and ensure their financial inclusivity. 

Through the ground-breaking initiative, UBA has fully demonstrates its unwavering commitment towards providing an excellent user experience for all its customers, regardless of their individual abilities or disabilities. It also comes in as a solution to challenges hitherto faced by visually impaired persons.

Speaking during the launch, UBA’s Executive Director, Finance and Risk Management, Ugo Nwaghodoh, said the bank continues to look for ways to make the physically challenged and others to be comfortable in their life-long relationship with the financial industry. 

This initiative, Nwaghodoh said, will be replicated in the months ahead in other countries in Africa where UBA operates.

“In our quest to drive all-encompassing financial inclusion, we decided to support the visually impaired by developing a Braille Account Opening Form and these special customers now have the same opportunities available to our customers,” Nwaghodoh said. 

Physically challenged persons hail initiative

While endorsing the laudable initiative, Award winning Music Producer, Cobhams Asuquo, described the Braille Account Opening Form as an innovative initiative that presents UBA as a bank with a heart that pays keen attention to the needs of the blind and disabled. 

“Before now, we have always been at the mercy of the reader when we want to do things like open accounts for ourselves, but this account opening form has come to solve the problem of access which has previously been a huge limiting factor for people like me who are blind,” Asuquo said. 

He added that with the initiative, “UBA has promoted our ideal of inclusivity and has helped to put back freedom in our hands while opening us up to the variety of opportunities and options available to us”.

Further expressing his delight to the initiative, Asuquo noted that: “UBA has blazed the trail, I am beyond elated, as this new initiative will send a strong note to others to replicate the same feat and make people realise that banking services can and should be done with humanity in mind. Thank you UBA for amplifying this much needed cause, I endorse this 100 per cent and I believe it is a much needed first-step that will lead to so many others”.

On his part, the General Manager, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs; LASODA, who was also at the event, commended UBA team for conceiving the idea. 

“I am so elated at this initiative, and I am happy to hear that this is also going to be replicated in the 19 African countries where UBA is present. I say thank you to this bank for this beautiful project. It is true that Governments cannot do it all, and we are glad when we see institutions charting the course for others,” he said. 

About the laudable initiative 

The UBA Braille Account Opening Form was produced with the support of Anglo-Nigerian Welfare Association for the Blind and is the first of its kind in the industry, designed specifically to cater to the needs of visually impaired individuals. 

With this innovative solution, UBA is empowering blind customers to independently initiate and complete the account opening process, ensuring their seamless integration into the financial system.