Last September I was invited by Alzheimer’s Society to participate in an event called Accessible Banking Forum, hosted by Ernst & Young at their London offices. All the main banks were in attendance together with representatives of various disabilities charities. Amongst the objectives of the Forum were the stated aims of discovering best practice for embedding accessibility in (banking) product design and aligning around key learnings and next steps needed to convert insights into action. I was asked to speak informally for just a couple of minutes, at the start of a group breakout session, to share some of my observations and reflections as my wife’s carer about her challenges as a person living with dementia unable to remember or communicate her security details when engaging with her bank.
At the end of the Forum there was a networking/drinks reception where I had a brief but very enjoyable conversation with a lady, name of Sara Collis, who turned out to be Interim Payments Teams Manager for C. Hoare & Co. - https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/ - the UK’s oldest private bank, owned continuously by the Hoare family for 12 generations. Sara asked me if I would be prepared to present to her colleagues at the bank about dementia, and dementia in the context of banking. I of course agreed and in February this year found myself speaking to around 60 of Sara’s co-workers. I confess I was really quite surprised when, on a show of hands, it appeared that by far the majority of the attendees had been touched by dementia in their personal lives. I talked about the most common types of dementia, how they manifest themselves in terms of the symptoms, and touched on the two new drugs that have been shown to slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and hopefully which will mark a turning point in its treatment.
I spoke in detail about the banking difficulties faced by people living with dementia, including remembering pin codes and passwords and the challenges of modern day online, mobile and telephone banking exacerbated by the closure of so many local branches. C. Hoare & Co. puts customers at the very heart of its business, offering very personalised services, crafted to individual requirements, and in this regard I reminded the audience of the importance of talking to customers about having Power of Attorney documents in place as well as up-to-date wills and how to engage with customers who may have dementia. The session concluded with a series of thoughtful questions from the audience, some related to banking but many to their own personal circumstances. I was very grateful to Sara to be afforded the opportunity to talk to her colleagues and with the next Accessible Banking Forum due to take place in March, I’m already wondering what may result from the next chance meeting.
