The Austrian legislative body passed the Accessibility Act (BaFG) in July 2023. The BaFG is intended to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities for products and services that are placed on the market after 28 June 2025. The products and services covered by the payment transactions sector include:
- Payment terminals,
- ATMs,
- banking services for consumers, including payment services.
The Accessibility Act (Federal Law Gazette I No. 76/2023) is based on the European Accessibility Directive (Directive 2019/882) and is applicable from 28 June 2025.
1. Applicability
The scope of application is regulated in § 2 BaFG. It includes both products and services.
1.1 Products relevant to payment transactions
- Payment terminals (Section 2 para. 1 no. 2 lit. a) and
- ATMs (Section 2 para. 1 no. 2 lit. b aa).
1.2 Services relevant to payment transactions
- Banking services for consumers (Section 2(2)(4)): These include credit agreements, payment services, services linked to a payment account, e-money, etc. According to the explanatory notes to the BaFG, the accessibility requirements should also apply to identification methods, electronic signatures and payment services. In this way, people with disabilities should be adequately protected in the same way as all other consumers and be able to use the services and make informed decisions.
- Services in electronic commerce (§ 2 para. 2 no. 6): These are remote services that lead to the conclusion of a consumer contract electronically at the individual request of a consumer and are provided via websites and mobile apps (e.g. e-banking, internet access services, SMS services).
2. accessibility requirements
Annex 1 of the BaFG regulates numerous accessibility requirements individually in sections:
- Annex 1, sections 1 and 2 apply to products (e.g. payment terminals).
- Annex 1, sections 3 and 4 apply to services.
- Payment instruments (e.g. payment cards such as debit or credit cards) are not regulated separately in the BaFG. However, it can be assumed that these must also be designed in such a way that they can be used barrier-free for banking services and e-commerce services.
In particular, banking services for consumers (Annex 1, Section 4 lit. e aa and bb) must be highlighted:
- When providing identification methods and electronic signatures, attention must be paid to robust, perceptible, understandable usability.
- The linguistic presentation of information must not exceed level B2 (higher intermediate level).
3. Transitional periods
The BaFG comes into force on 28 June 2025. However, long-term transitional periods apply (§ 37 BaFG). Self-service terminals, for example, which were used by a service provider before 28 June 2025, may be used
- until the end of their economic life,
- but no longer than 20 years after commissioning
- and until 28 June 2040 at the latest.
Summary The Accessibility Act presents payment transactions with major changes. Both the devices used for payment transactions and the services themselves must be designed to be barrier-free in future. There is still a good year to go before the law becomes applicable. Relatively long transition periods apply. |
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