Deaf Equity in Financial Services 2026 Annual Report

From Provision to Proficiency: Bridging the Financial “Outcome Gap”

Commissioned by the Deaf Inclusion Industry Group (DIIG), Chaired by Nationwide Building Society, together with ImpactMatch, deafPLUS and Signing banks UK, ActionAble has published the fourth annual report on Deaf Equity in Financial Services.*

For the first time, this year’s report combines industry data and lived experience insight drawing on survey responses from 34 DIIG members and insight from 85 deaf BSL users supported through the moneyPLUS service. The report highlights both the progress made across the sector and the opportunities that remain. The focus moves beyond whether services exist, to whether they deliver consistent, equitable outcomes in practice.

*The 2023-2025 reports were published by the Lending Standards Board, in partnership with DIIG.

Why this report matters

Financial services have made meaningful progress in building the infrastructure for inclusion, with a growing range of accessibility services and increased collaboration across the sector. However, this progress is not yet consistently translating into independent, confident outcomes for deaf customers.

The challenge now is moving from having services in place to making sure they are usable, understood and effective.

applying the Disability Dividend

Published in February 2026 in The Disability Dividend: Unlocking Growth in UK Financial Services report, supported by EY, ActionAble identified four priority drivers that form the Disability Dividend Framework, designed to enable system-level change.

To support organisations in responding to these findings, the report applies the Disability Dividend framework as a structure for its recommendations. This reframes deaf inclusion not as a compliance exercise, but as a commercial and operational priority, aligned to four drivers:

• Revenue (Customer Growth): Improving access, trust and engagement to unlock underserved markets.
• Innovation (Universal Design): Designing end-to-end journeys that work for deaf customers and improve experiences for all.
• Productivity (Personal Performance): Enabling colleagues to deliver consistently effective support.
• Talent (Tomorrow’s Talent): Building inclusive workforces and strengthening long-term capability.

The report sets out practical actions organisations can take – from embedding “Tell Us Once” approaches and improving BSL-first communications, to strengthening co-design with lived experience and exploring a sector-wide Deaf Services Code of Practice.

Image description: Diagram illustrating the Disability Dividend Framework. The framework sets out four interconnected drivers for building a better, more inclusive business. Internally, organisations focus on personal performance, improving productivity by enabling disabled colleagues to contribute fully, and on tomorrow’s talent, attracting and retaining the next generation for whom inclusion is a baseline expectation. Externally, organisations focus on customer growth, capturing the underserved market of disabled customers, and on universal design, removing access barriers to create products and services that work for a broader population. Together, the four drivers show how disability inclusion supports long-term growth, innovation and organisational performance.