WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) was first released in late 2008 and introduced the POUR principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust. Today, meeting WCAG is no longer just “nice to have” UX hygiene—it is a regulatory requirement in many markets.
European Union
The European Accessibility Act (EAA, Directive (EU) 2019/882), which applies in full from 28 June 2025, requires digital accessibility for financial services, including banking platforms, mobile apps, and payment services. The directive does not name WCAG explicitly, but it does require that services follow the POUR principles as the basis for accessibility.
Lawsuits in the EU
Legal cases are still relatively rare, but they are already happening. For example, airline Vueling has reportedly been fined 90,000 euros and lost access to state subsidies for six months over accessibility issues. With the EAA now fully in force, enforcement activity and case statistics are expected to grow in the coming years.
United States
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires private businesses—such as banks, restaurants, shops, hotels, cinemas, and medical offices—to provide equal access to goods, services, and premises for people with disabilities. While the ADA originally focused on physical accessibility (ramps, parking, etc.), federal guidance and case law now make it clear that banking and fintech websites and apps must also be accessible and are expected to follow WCAG.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies and their vendors, including fintech providers selling into the federal space, to meet WCAG 2.0 AA at minimum. In practice, many organizations now treat WCAG 2.1 AA as the current baseline.
Lawsuits in the US
Earlier cases often ended without monetary penalties and focused on requiring companies to fix their websites and apps and then report on WCAG compliance. Examples include:
- Peapod (online grocery), 2014
- Winn-Dixie (supermarket chain), 2017
- Domino’s Pizza, 2021
- Hy‑Vee (COVID‑19 vaccination scheduling site), 2021
Litigation has accelerated. By 2025, more than 2,000 web accessibility lawsuits had already been filed in a single year in the US, with many cases ending in out-of-court settlements.
What teams should do
In real projects, most hands-on accessibility work typically lands with frontend engineers. However, designers and product managers have a lot of influence and should actively steer this work.
Key areas to control in design and product:
- Readable text with sufficient contrast and proper scaling
- Sensible use of color, avoiding color-only encoding and pairing statuses with text or icons
- Thought-through states (hover, focus, active, disabled) that are visible and consistent
- Clear content structure with headings, lists, and logical hierarchy
- Descriptive copy for interactive elements, navigation, and error messages
A very helpful resource is Ardvark’s WCAG in Plain English, which explains each WCAG criterion in clear language and lets you filter by role (design, code, content) and other dimensions. This is a good starting point for teams that find the official W3C text too dense.
Figma plugins for accessibility
While designing interfaces in Figma, it is useful to integrate automated accessibility checks into the workflow. In practice, most plugins do not go much further than color contrast checks—but even that is already a meaningful improvement in everyday work.
Popular plugins include:
A common issue with many plugins is that they do not always correctly detect which colors are used for text and backgrounds, which leads to false positives or missed failures. In our agency work, BrowserStack’s toolkit has proven to be the most reliable among the popular options, with fewer detection errors overall.
Bottom line
Accessibility is a competitive advantage. Regulatory pressure is increasing across markets, but the main benefit remains product quality and conversion. Accessible interfaces tend to convert better, especially because people with reduced mobility and older adults often represent between 15% and 30% of the user base, depending on the market.
Further reading
WCAG
European Union
United States
Figma plugins