"There will always be more to be done, but it’s encouraging to see SM Advice reflecting on some of the challenges and taking initial steps. "
- Peter Hamilton, disability & access ambassador for the insurance sector
Timed to coincide with Deaf Awareness Week 2025, SM Advice has launched its British Sign Language (BSL) translated social media service.
According to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), there are approximately 12mn people who are Deaf, have hearing loss, or tinnitus living in the UK. Of these, roughly 151k people use BSL, with 87k using BSL as their first language, as of 2024.
This service has been designed to build trust and increase accessibility for Deaf customers, providing advisers and firms with compliant social media posts that are BSL translated and verified. This ensures messaging is clear to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.
SM Advice’s new offering includes BSL translated video posts alongside English text versions, compliance aligned with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) requirements, and direct collaboration with Deaf consultants to ensure authenticity and clarity.
“As part of our mission to improve financial inclusion, we’re proud to offer advisers and firms a meaningful way to engage with Deaf customers. By removing barriers, this service enables Deaf individuals to access financial information in a format that works for them and helps to drive trust,” said Setul Mehta, founder of SM Advice (pictured).
Reacting to the launch, Peter Hamilton, head of market engagement at Zurich Insurance and disability & access ambassador for the insurance sector, commented, “Anything that better enables access to insurance is inherently a good thing. Customers with different conditions face barriers at various stages of their journeys with financial firms. There will always be more to be done, but it’s encouraging to see SM Advice reflecting on some of the challenges and taking initial steps.”
“We’re proud to be supporting SM Advice with launching its BSL translated social media service. For 87k BSL users, English is not their first language, which can create difficulties in reading captions on videos, so providing BSL translation ensures content is accessible. This project is a great step towards being inclusive to the Deaf community,” added Chris McQueen, head of sales at Involve Interpreter.
