Notices

  • Savings products - In preparation of the launch of our new and improved Online Service we have temporarily withdrawn online applications for all our savings products. You can still apply for these products by post or in branch. All savings products will be available to apply online from 12 May. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

  • Savings customers: Your 2024 / 2025 Annual Interest Savings Summary are currently being processed and are due to be delivered by 30 April 2025.

  • We’ll shortly be making some changes to our Online Service to make it simpler and easier for you to use.  

    Our new Online Service will have a modern design, improved navigation and many added benefits.  

    Find out more about the changes

  • Mortgage products - On Wednesday 23 April, we made changes to our mortgage product range. These include rate adjustments across our fixed rate products, and an increase to our Owner Occupier Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor maximum LTV to up to 90% (with no additional security required) for loans up to £500,000.

  • Online Service update. Due to planned essential maintenance our Online Service will be unavailable from 6pm until 12am on Wednesday 7 May. Our Online Service will also be unavailable between 5.30pm on Friday 9 May until 9am on Monday 12 May. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Accessibility on our website

We are committed to making our website accessible to all our members. 

 

At Family Building Society we're committed to making our website accessible to all our Members. Our website has been designed to be compatible with a range of technology used by people with disabilities.

Our website follows Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 to Level A accessibility standards. These internationally recognised guidelines are the benchmark for building accessible websites, detailing how websites can ensure accessibility for those with disabilities. 

We aim to continually improve the usability and accessibility of our website. If you have any questions please contact our Family Service Team on 03330 140144.


Support if you are blind or partially sighted

We aim to ensure that all relevant information is readable by screen readers. There are a range of different screen readers available to help improve your website experience, we have listed a few below that work with our website:

NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access)

For Windows computers, NVDA is screen reader programme created by not-for-profit charity MV Access.

This short video gives an overview of this free screen reading software and how it works:

JAWS (Job Access With Speech) 

JAWS is the world’s most popular Windows screen reader created by Freedom Scientific. This is a paid-for screen reader.

This short video gives an overview of this free screen reading software and how it works:

For more information about JAWS and to download the software please click here: https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/


There is also screen reader software built into computers, tablets and smart phones. These can be accessed as follows:

Microsoft Narrator (for Windows)

This short video will give a brief introduction to Microsoft Narrator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yDNQYRzRY&t=1s

To turn on the built in 'Narrator', follow these simple steps:

  • Open the 'Ease of Access Center' by clicking the 'Start' button, then 'Control Panel', 'Ease of Access' then 'Ease of Access Center'. You can also open this using the keyboard shortcut 'Windows Key and U'
  • Click on 'Start Narrator'
  • This will open the 'Narrator' window where you can change the settings accordingly.

 

VoiceOver (for Apple devices)

(Apple Mac)

  • Firstly open System Preferences by clicking its icon in the Dock, or by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu
  • In the 'System Preferences' window, click either the 'Universal Access preference pane' or the 'Accessibility preference pane' depending on your operating system
  • Click VoiceOver, then click Open VoiceOver Utility. Here you can turn on VoiceOver and change its settings.
  • You can also turn VoiceOver on and off by pressing Command-F5 on your keyboard.

(Apple phones/Ipad)

  • Open ‘Settings’, select 'General' and choose ‘Accessibility’
  • Under Vision select 'VoiceOver'. Here you can turn on VoiceOver and changes its settings

 

TalkBack (Android devices)

  • Open ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Accessibility’
  • Under Screen readers select 'Talkback'. Here you can turn on TalkBack and changes its settings.


If you have difficulty reading any text on screen, you can quickly and easily resize the font/text size to your preference through your browser settings.

  • In Microsoft Edge, click the three dots in the top right corner of your screen, select Settings, scroll down to Accessibility and change Page Zoom.
  • In Google Chrome, click the three dots in the top right corner of your screen, then scroll down to Zoom and increase accordingly.
  • In Mozilla Firefox, go to the Application menu and select Zoom.
  • In Opera, go to the File menu, select Preferences then Fonts and then change Minimum font size (pixels).
  • In Safari, go to the View menu and select Make Text Bigger or press the Apple Key and then the plus key ( then +).


Support if you are deaf or hard of hearing

For anyone who has difficulties with hearing or speech, our customer facing staff are trained to be aware that some of our customers might be using Relay UK. If this is something you think you’d benefit from, there’s more information  here. 

 

Tools to help with dyslexia

If you struggle with your reading due to dyslexia or another disability then there are various tools that can be added to your web browser that can provide additional support. These extensions added to your web browser can aid in the readability of your web pages.

Helperbird is one of the widely used extensions which aid in improving readability of your webpages and is available across all major web browsers such as  Google Chrome,  Microsoft Edge,  Safari and  Firefox.  Once added to your web browser it offers dyslexia support features such as dyslexia rulers and fonts, voice typing translations, word prediction, text to speech, and overlays.

Below are a couple of other web browser extensions/add-ons that you may also find useful in improving reading accessibility:

  • OpenDyslexic - this Google Chrome extension is an open sourced font created to increase readability for people who have dyslexia. This extension replaces all fonts on a web page with the OpenDyslexic font, and formats pages to improve readability.
  • Pixie - this Microsoft Edge add-on provides various tools to improve accessibility as well the ability to alter webpage styling for optimal readability, including dyslexia-friendly fonts like OpenDyslexic, which will enhance the space between lines, words, and letters.