FF News Tattoo Studio: Project Nemo and the Accessibility Gap in Fintech

At the FF News Tattoo Studio at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, Joanne Dewar talks about Project Nemo, the industry-wide push to make digital finance genuinely accessible. Project Nemo digital accessibility isn’t a niche cause—it’s a trillion-dollar opportunity.  Dewar isn’t chasing a trillion-dollar valuation; she’s chasing a trillion-dollar impact by making everyday banking and payments usable for everyone.

Her message is simple: the fintech sector has raced ahead with challenger banks, BNPL and slick apps and digital journeys, but too often accessibility is left behind. Dewar explains that Project Nemo is a call to action for the whole financial services industry to take digital accessibility seriously.

She traces part of the problem to how diversity and inclusion has been prioritised. In many firms, the focus goes in order: gender, ethnicity, LGBTQIA+ and disability comes fourth, if at all. When disability sits at the back of the queue, it gets “parked,” and accessibility becomes a “we’ll do it later” task. Dewar argues that teams often don’t know what good looks like for digital accessibility, or how disability inclusion translates into product, design and engineering choices.

Project Nemo’s message is practical: most progress doesn’t require “special” banking products. It’s about making existing financial services accessible, think clear navigation, screen-reader compatibility, good colour contrast, captioned video help, flexible authentication options and simple language that supports users. For context, this is in line with how digital product teams approach accessibility standards more broadly and how banks already think about inclusive design in other channels.

Looking ahead, Dewar wants to keep the conversation active at conferences, in newsletters and across industry forums so confidence and capability can build over time. Project Nemo is launching a resource hub to gather its own materials plus partner content, case studies, how-to guides and pointers to organisations that can help teams assess and improve accessibility. The aim is to make it easier for product managers, designers, engineers and risk leaders to find “what to do next” without starting from scratch.

Dewar also highlights a regulatory and customer-care gap around decision-making. Financial services often treat capacity as binary: either a customer has full capacity, or someone else manages their affairs under a lasting power of attorney. In reality, there’s a wide grey area.

Project Nemo argues the industry should enable people to be as independent as possible, through clearer choices, assistive features and graduated controls, rather than forcing all-or-nothing solutions. The conversation closes on a personal note: this is the most rewarding work Dewar has done, because people keep telling her, online and in person, that it’s genuinely helping.

For Dewar, Project Nemo digital accessibility isn’t about compliance—it’s about dignity and usability.