Digital accessibility

Introduction

Accessibility is the ability of a service, whether digital or physical, to be fully usable by individuals with impaired vision, hearing, cognition and/or motor functions.

Monitoring drafting and designing rules and good practices enables us to make digital media accessible to disabled people. This includes websites, mobile applications, PDF documents and other online public communication services.

Thus, the content offered must be perceptible (visual and auditory perception of the content made easy), usable, comprehensible and adapted to assistance technologies.

Digital accessibility concerns all disabilities affecting the use of online public communication services, which includes physical, sensory, mental, cognitive and psychological disabilities.

Accessibility in the digital strategy of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale

Digital accessibility is central to the concerns relating to the development and provision of websites and mobile applications to our customers, thus contributing to the policy of CIC of promoting the inclusion of individuals with disabilities.

As per Directive (EU) 2016/2102, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale implements the following strategy and actions:

  • Publication on the homepage of the compliance with accessibility rules status
  • Publication of a multi-year accessibility programme
  • Publication of accessibility statements for websites, mobile applications
  • Provision of a whistleblowing system concerning breaches to accessibility rules

A structure dedicated to accessibility

The Accessibility Centre

The Accessibility Centre takes charge of recurrent and transverse action:

  • The regulatory watch of accessibility at European level to support foreign subsidiaries
  • Update of the list of all websites and mobile applications of the Group Entities concerned by accessibility regulations
  • Supporting the accessibility contacts of the entity in their efforts to bring their digital media into compliance
  • Order centralisation for website, mobile application audits
  • Integrating accessibility into the components of our proprietary technical environment and the internal training that is required
  • Managing internal applications for development assistance including a web page accessibility diagnosis application and assistance for correcting the most common accessibility errors
  • Implementation of accessibility by web content generating applications
  • Updating the document base on the subject of digital accessibility
  • Managing assistance equipment and updating the assistance soft and hardware catalogue, supporting Disability contacts during assistance equipment orders, providing support for assistance software
  • Providing technical support and assistance
  • Internal communication on accessibility..

Training and awareness raising

E-learning modules are offered to raise the awareness of all developers, content writers (including the PDF documents), webmasters, project owners, organisers, UX Designers, etc.

Training modules adapted to the different profiles are offered by the Training Department and are included in the continuous training catalogue. Thus, the developers and webmasters can train to develop accessibly in HTML as well as in webpage and mobile application screen languages. More advanced training is offered to developers of components and strategic applications.

Accessibility requirement for external software, and the services and content supplied by outside contractors

We require all external solutions to meet the accessibility standards in order to be integrated into our application fleet.
That requirement is formalised in the agreements with outside contractors.

User support

Any user encountering an accessibility issue can report it via the contact means of the website or mobile application.

An internal anomaly management system enables us to systematically take into account any reported issue within the best time frame.

Work for bringing websites and mobile applications into compliance

Accessibility within projects

Due to the digital accessibility awareness measures and the training courses offered, accessibility is taken into account from the start of a project.

Knowledge, learning, support and control resources are provided to all the parties involved throughout the project:

  • internal documentation is available from a portal dedicated to digital accessibility
  • an internally developed application to systematically verify that each content update complies with at least major accessibility criteria
  • at least one screen reader is available for testing web pages
  • a specialised unit providing support.

At the same time, the development process has been supplemented with accessibility control milestones.

Most developers of our websites and mobile applications work in a proprietary technical environment.
It provides components that are reviewed so as to comply with the requirements of accessibility standards; all new components automatically incorporate accessibility rules.

Content common to the website pages is managed by a single team, which is specifically trained in accessibility.

Internal tools are used to generate some web content or documents in Word or PDF format. They are designed to eventually generate accessible elements.

Audits

Throughout the year, rapid accessibility assessments (diagnoses) of future applications or developments are made on demand. These diagnoses are conducted by in-house accessibility experts. They relate to a small number of criteria of the test standards, selected for their relevance depending on the context of the application and the level (blocking, major) of the requirement.

Websites and mobile applications of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale as well as the Departments concerned by the EAA regulation are audited by an external service provider, which determines a compliance level used to establish their accessibility declaration.

The declaration audits for websites or mobile applications are conducted at least once every 3 years.

Corrective measures

For each nonconformity found at an audit, a team is identified and tasked with correcting it.
A normalised correction request is created for each of these teams then enters the development process.
Developers have a first level of support and a dedicated site to help with the corrections.
Generally, these corrections are validated or invalidated, during a follow-up audit or failing this, a new audit.

Annual action plans

The annual action plans specific to CIC supplement the action in favor of accessibility that is taken transversally over the whole Group, on a recurring basis.

Action plan 2025

2025 Action plan. Table listing the action that is scheduled for completion during the year. These action lines are grouped by website and/or mobile application and/or in a Miscellaneous action category and/or in a Community action category.
Actions Forecast completion dates
Website www.cic.fr
Perform an accessibility audit of the website T1 2025
Perform a follow-up accessibility audit of the website. T1 2025

Action plan 2026

No action scheduled

Action plan 2027

No action scheduled

Annual action plan reviews

Action plan 2024

Action plan 2023

Action plan 2022

Action plan 2021

Action plan 2020

Action plan 2019

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