NEW YORK -- Citibank has installed New York's first five talking ATMs. The machines, using text-to-speech technology, deliver audible information privately through an earphone so that persons who are blind, or who may otherwise have difficulty reading an ATM screen in print, can independently use the ATM.
The five New York machines, along with five Citibank talking ATMs in California, are the beginning of a 16-month plan unveiled today to install a talking ATM at each of Citibank's Financial Centers and its ATM centers across the country. The machines will be upgraded, improved versions of talking ATMs originally installed by Citibank in November, 1999.
Citibank's announcement was hailed by members of the blind community who have worked with Citibank on the talking ATM project. Steven Mendelsohn, a blind technology policy analyst and disability rights advocate who lives in New York, has been working with the bank for several years on the talking ATM initiative, said, "Citibank's agreement to make ATMs fully accessible to all customers, including customers with visual impairments, represents another important milestone on the path to full social participation and economic opportunity for Americans with disabilities."
The agreement announced today resulted from a collaborative effort that began when members of the blind community approached Citibank to discuss how the company's ATMs could be programmed to communicate audibly with blind and low vision consumers.
In addition to Mendelsohn and Kathy Martinez, deputy director of the World Institute on Disability, an Oakland, Calif.-based international disability research and policy agency, the California Council of the Blind also participated in the discussions with the bank.
Lawyers for the blind community were Linda M. Dardarian of the Oakland law firm of Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, Berkeley disability rights lawyer Lainey Feingold, and the Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
