# Banking Website Translation for EU Compliance | Vitra.ai > The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 and covers banking. Where language and accessibility overlap, and which surfaces to check first. **Canonical URL**: https://www.vitra.ai/banking/banking-website-translation-eu **Source**: This is the Markdown rendering of https://www.vitra.ai/banking/banking-website-translation-eu, generated at build time from that page. --- 4 min read # Banking Website Translation for EU Compliance The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 and covers banking. Where language and accessibility overlap, and which surfaces to check first. [Samhitha J Bhatt](https://www.vitra.ai/author/samhitha) Senior Product Manager , Vitra.ai Updated Aug 14, 2026 ![Banking Website Translation for EU Compliance](https://www.vitra.ai/static/images/blog/banking-website-translation-eu.jpg) Table of contents [Two obligations that get handled by different teams](#two-obligations-that-get-handled-by-different-teams) [Where the overlap actually bites](#where-the-overlap-actually-bites) [What to run this quarter](#what-to-run-this-quarter) [Where this article stops](#where-this-article-stops) [FAQ](#faq) Contributors [Samhitha J Bhatt](https://www.vitra.ai/author/samhitha) Senior Product Manager Subscribe to our newsletter Subscribe > **Quick answer —** The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied since 28 June 2025 and names consumer banking services, so most retail banking websites and apps in the EU are in scope. Language sits alongside it: national rules often require pre-contractual information in the local language.[Vitra.ai Universe](https://www.vitra.ai/platform) covers the web and document side of that work. ## Two obligations that get handled by different teams Accessibility and language are separate requirements, and in most banks they sit with separate people. Engineering owns the screen-reader work. Marketing owns translation. Nobody owns the seam between them, which is where the interesting failures live. A page can pass an automated accessibility scan in English and fail completely for a Portuguese customer using a screen reader, because the `lang` attribute still says `en` and the synthesiser reads Portuguese words with English phonetics. Technically translated. Practically unusable. ## Where the overlap actually bites Surface The failure nobody catches Page and section language attributes Wrong `lang` breaks screen-reader pronunciation Form field labels and errors Translated visually, still English to assistive tech PDF terms and key information Untagged, so unreadable in any language Video explainers Captions in one language, audio in another That third row is the common one. A bank translates the web page carefully and links a PDF that was never tagged for accessibility in the first place. ## What to run this quarter Start with an automated scan, which catches the mechanical failures and nothing else. Then test the booking or application flow using only a keyboard. Then run it with a screen reader set to a language that isn't English. That last test is the one that surfaces the seam, and it takes an afternoon. Documents are worth a separate pass, and the wider scope question is in [banking website translation](https://www.vitra.ai/banking/banking-website-translation). [Document translation](https://www.vitra.ai/features/document-translation) that preserves structure gives assistive tech something to navigate, which a flattened PDF export does not. For explainer video, [subtitles](https://www.vitra.ai/features/video-dubbing) and dubbed audio should come from the same source so they cannot drift apart. ## Where this article stops Whether your particular services fall in scope, and what each member state requires on top of the directive, is a legal question for your counsel. The EAA is a directive, so it lands through national law and the detail varies. The engineering and content side is the part above: fix the language attributes, test with a screen reader in another language, and stop shipping untagged PDFs. ## FAQ **Does the European Accessibility Act apply to banks?** In most cases yes. The directive names consumer banking services and has applied since 28 June 2025, which brings retail banking websites and apps in scope. Whether your specific services qualify is a question for counsel. **How do accessibility and translation overlap on a banking site?** Through the language attribute and assistive tech. A page translated visually but still declaring English makes a screen reader pronounce the new language with English phonetics, so it is readable on screen and unusable by ear. **What is the most commonly missed EU banking surface?** Linked PDFs. Terms and key information documents are often exported without accessibility tagging, so they are unreadable by assistive technology in every language, translated or not. **What should a bank test first for EU accessibility?** An automated scan for mechanical failures, then the application flow by keyboard alone, then the same flow with a screen reader set to a non-English language. 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[Samhitha J Bhatt](https://www.vitra.ai/author/samhitha) Aug 18, 2026 [View all posts](https://www.vitra.ai/blog/page/1) --- ## Structured data ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://www.vitra.ai/banking/banking-website-translation-eu" }, "headline": "Banking Website Translation for EU Compliance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.vitra.ai/static/images/blog/banking-website-translation-eu.jpg" } ], "datePublished": "2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z", "dateModified": "2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z", "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Samhitha J Bhatt" } ], "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Vitra.ai", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.vitra.ai/static/images/vitra-v-logo.png" } }, "description": "The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 and covers banking. 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