Central Bank website gets high score for accessibility

The website of the Central Bank of Malta has been given a high score for accessibility by the Malta Communications Authority (MCA), the entity responsible for ensuring that relevant EU regulations are followed by public sector bodies.

Local legislation on making websites as accessible as possible to all came into effect in May 2019, transposing EU Directive 2016/2102, with the MCA consulting with the Foundation for IT Accessibility and the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability to ensure that it used the right tools when assessing public sector bodies.

The MCA conducted a review of the Bank’s website in October 2020, and found the majority of the website was already compliant. The Bank was fully committed to improving its score and under the guidance of the regulator launched several projects to improve accessibility across the website.

The majority of the changes required were aimed at making the site easier for those with visual challenges, for example, by improving colour contrast and navigational tools.

This project is part of an ongoing review of the website, which improved the site map and made it easier for visitors to find content more intuitively, as well as refreshing the aesthetics.

Governor Edward Scicluna said: “The Bank’s mandate affects every section of society and we gave this project top priority as we believe it is important for the information on its operations to be accessible to as many people as possible. Our next step is to help the public become more financially literate so this project becomes truly meaningful”.