##tes a budget for certain number of branches to be designated as oku friendly with proper ramps, auto doors, and atms with bigger space and lower height to cater for wheelchair - bound customers and designated counter for oku customers. to date maybank has 49 branches designated as oku friendly. maybank has also launched a programme called rise ( reach independence and sustainable entrepreneurship ) providing guidance to the okus to expand business opportunities through structured mentoring programme and providing loan to grow business. as a result, the bank has assisted 280 okus to start their own businesses. from the insurance industry, allianz malaysia bhd. has organized a 5 - day workshop to understand the needs of the oku and identify actions that can be taken to help improve accessibility to financial services. arising from the workshop, allianz has formed a special working group to look at the services and facilities for the disabled and will launch three products specifically for the oku soon. i am confident that more programmes have been initiated by other financial institutions which i do not have the opportunity to mention all of them here. i would like to urge all financial institutions to take greater effort towards these initiatives. issues and challenges faced by okus that need to be addressed later in this program, as we learn more on the issues and challenges faced by the okus in their daily life, especially with regards to their difficulty on accessing the financial product and services, we will appreciate better the challenges that this group has to go through. let us pause for a while and take this opportunity to reflect on what each of our institution has done to assist and include the oku into the financial system. bis central bankers ’ speeches one issue resolved to ensure greater accessibility to atm cards / debit / internet banking based on the feedback that we gathered from our engagements with the okus, the most recent in april 2015, there are still a lot of challenges faced by the okus in accessing the products and services of the financial industry. however, to date, i am pleased to note that one issue has been resolved with regard to the plight of the visually impaired that they were sometimes denied access to own atm cards and internet banking. the association of banks in malaysia ( abm ) together with its council members have worked with the ncbm ( national council of the blind ) and as a result have now reached a solution that enables access to such services by the visually impaired individuals. this is indeed a positive step to move forward. however, there are

other immediate needs that have not been addressed. for the banking industry, examples of such needs are : • lower bank counters for wheelchair - bound customers • “ talking atms ” for the visually impaired • availability of sign language interpreters for the deaf • the need for oku - friendly bank website to enhance their accessibility to e - banking services, which would augur well with the initiative by bank negara malaysia to promote the usage of e - banking. banks are encouraged to provide websites which are w3c compliance. the world wide web consortium ( w3c ) is an international body that provides standards to enhance the web accessibility, enabling people with disabilities to participate equally on the web, such as providing alternative text for images to allow accessibility by the visually impaired, providing text transcript to allow audio information accessible to the hearing impaired, and many other services. for the insurance industry, more needs to be done to provide products that cater for the okus ’ needs and to address the issue of high loading of insurance premium imposed by the insurers. another area for consideration – employment opportunities for okus on another aspect, the government has issued a service circular to implement a 1 % policy on employment opportunities for okus in the public sector as well as provided incentive by giving double tax relief for employers of oku. it is encouraging to note that several financial institutions have provided opportunities for the okus to be employed in the financial industry and recognized that they have the necessary capabilities to contribute to the financial industry. nevertheless, more needs to be done and i hope financial institutions will provide the opportunity for more okus to be employed in the financial industry. global trend - benchmarking with financial sector in other countries showed that they are more advanced on the global front, looking at the trends and initiatives by other countries, especially the developed countries, we observe that the industry associations are very proactive and undertake a leading role in ensuring the okus ’ rights are met. for example, the australian bankers ’ association issued guiding principles for accessible authentication to provide guidance to financial institutions to adopt stronger authentication technologies to facilitate the access of people with disabilities. strong human rights legislation that changed the banking system i would also like to share a landmark case in canada in 1991 where two blind customers were frustrated with their bank when they could not access information about their mortgage bis central bankers ’ speeches and the bank ’ s other services. since they were both blind, they could not read banking information that was only available in printed brochures