Desjardins.com is the most accessible financial site in Canada for blind persons

Montreal, December 3, 2007 – A Canada-wide study conducted by the Institut Nazareth et Louis-Braille (INLB) and the Coopérative AccessibilitéWeb on website accessibility for blind persons has confirmed that www.desjardins.com is the leader.

"We at Desjardins Group are very proud to be recognized by the Institut Nazareth et Louis-Braille for the accessibility of our website's informational section," declared Mr. Daniel Boyer, Internet Solutions Evolution and Operations Unit Manager.

Today, the INLB and the Coopérative AccessibilitéWeb published the results of their study, which examined approximately 200 of the websites most visited by French Canadians. A website is termed accessible when the information it contains can easily be used by the majority of Internet users, regardless of their level of technical proficiency or their type of disability.

To transform www.desjardins.com into the model of accessibility it is today, Desjardins Group adapted the 15,000 pages in its site's information section, one by one, adjusting to the following standards:

• Non-textual elements, such as images, are labelled with a textual description to explain the content to blind persons.
• Data tables are made accessible to blind persons, who can read them with a Braille or voice screen reader.
• Title hierarchy is conscientiously respected to ensure that the structure of each page is well-defined.
• Information is divided into short and logical blocks to allow for quick scanning.
• Links are meaningful and their destination is made clear, so that blind Internet users can be aware of the context before clicking on a link.

"Being named the best informational site among all the financial sites in Canada by the INLB is a great honour for our whole team. It's one of the greatest acknowledgements of Desjardins's efforts, since it comes directly from the very people for whom we made our site accessible," stated Mr. Boyer.

Last year, the Desjardins Financial Services Division also received recognition from the Regroupement des personnes aveugles et amblyopes du Québec for adding a vocal device to Desjardins ATMs, making it easier for persons with visual impairments to use the machines.

About Desjardins Group

Desjardins Group is the largest integrated cooperative financial group in Canada, with overall assets of $147 billion, as at September 30, 2007. It comprises a network of caisses, credit unions and business centres in Québec and Ontario, and some twenty subsidiary companies in life and general insurance, securities brokerage, venture capital and asset management, many of which are active across the country. Drawing on the expertise of its 40,000 employees and the commitment of nearly 6,800 elected officers, Desjardins offers its 5.8 million individual and corporate members and clients a full range of financial products and services. Its physical distribution network is complemented by leading-edge virtual access methods.

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