Newcastle BS adopts Recite Me's accessibility functionality

Newcastle Building Society has collaborated with assistive technology company, Recite Me, to add accessibility and language tools to its website for mortgage intermediaries.

The partnership supports brokers to access content more easily, as well as helping those with visual impairments, disabilities and those whose first language is not English.

The Recite Me tool will enable users to personalise font size, type, and colour options to make each web page easier to read. Web content will also be downloadable as an audio file as an alternative to reading, and users will be able to convert page content into over 100 different on-screen languages, while also having the ability to read aloud in over 65 different languages.

In England, 9.8 million people live with a disability, and can often face barriers that prevent them from taking an active part in life. Newcastle Building Society has already made diversity, equity and inclusion one of its five strategic priorities, and the roll-out of Recite Me’s accessibility support technology comes as part of this commitment.

Jennie Pitt, head of diversity, equality and inclusion at Newcastle Building Society, commented: “We’re committed to making it easy for our broker partners to interact with us in the way they choose. That’s why, as well as maintaining our network of business development managers dedicated to providing experts advice on product, criteria or application questions, we’re making it simpler for brokers to navigate the website and find the information they need, by making our website accessible to everyone.”

Francesco Di Pietro, head of intermediary mortgages at Newcastle Building Society, added: “Ensuring that as many brokers as possible are able to access our website and obtain the information they need is important for our Society in enabling us to deliver high levels of customer service, and an inclusive experience for our partners.”