1 in 4 cash machines in America are accessible to people with sight loss. By simply plugging in a pair of earphones you will be able to hear what is on the screen and use the machine by yourself without the need for help from another person.
How it all began
Make Money Talk, The RNIB campaign to get UK cash machines talking was launched in September 2011 and has quickly gained pace. The first milestone came in November 2012 when Barclays announced that it had made 75 percent of its machines accessible to blind and partially sighted users, this is over 3000 machines.
Fazilet Hadi, RNIB Group Director of Inclusive Society said "We are delighted Barclays has kept its promise and rolled out speech enabled ATMs, benefiting thousands of people with sight loss. We believe banks in the UK should provide ATMs with audio facilities for their blind and partially sighted customers, across their ATM networks, and now call for other banks to follow Barclays' example."
Nationwide, The Co-operative and Lloyds Banking Group
November 2012 also saw Nationwide Building Society announce its full support for the campaign with plans to implement talking cash machines in its ATM network.
The Building Society has partnered with NCR, the world's largest ATM provider, to develop effective audio software, which it aims to deploy in 2013.
In January 2013 RNIB were delighted when the Co-operative Bank committed to introducing talking ATMs with the aim of having 1000 talking machines by the end of 2013 and 2000 by the end of 2014.
Lloyds Banking Group (which includes Lloyds TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland) also committed to the campaign in early 2012. They are switching to talking ATMs this year as part of their renewal programme.
Visa
RNIB have been supported by VISA by welcoming the introduction of talking cash machines.
VISA told us "We welcome the expansion of talking ATMs in the UK market. Visa endeavours to ensure its products and services are as accessible as possible to all cardholders and the RNIB and Visa are committed to working together to address the needs of blind and partially sighted people in using ATMs."
How can you help?
HSBC and Santander have still not committed to adding voice assistance to their cash machines, if you're a customer take action and write to your bank asking them to make their cash machines accessible.
If you haven't already told your bank that access to cash machines is important to you, now is the time to complain to your bank!
More information about talking cash machines and how you can help make more accessible can be found on the RNIB Campaigns pages.