With the new release of their app and website, the developer at Fineco Bank, my bank, decided that in Italy, we should all get rid of letters like à, é, è, ù, ò, and ì from our written language. While this is a debatable opinion and could spark interesting discussions, I believe the bank should prioritize its core banking services and leave linguistic decisions to its customers, respecting their freedom of expression.
Franco Folini
Fineco’s website is messing with Italians
Today, while accessing the Fineco Bank website in Italian, I had a very poor user experience. I was filling out a form to request support on a specific topic when I entered the Italian word “Titolarità.” The form immediately alerted me that I was using a non-alphabetic character that it could not accept. Well, after some quick tests, it turns out the character I allegedly used that wasn’t alphabetical was the letter “à”. In written Italian, the accented a is a very common letter, even if some people prefer the grammatically incorrect form a’ (a with an apostrophe).
Apparently, some developer at Fineco Bank decided that in Italy, we should all get rid of letters like à, é, è, ù, ò, and ì. It is an interesting opinion, but I believe the bank should not impose that on me. I should be able to keep using all the Italian letters when writing.
Maybe Fineco Bank developers should focus more on developing robust, user-friendly software and properly testing it, and less on promoting and imposing their personal, incorrect grammatical opinions about which letters their customers must use.
Fineco Bank developers should focus on developing robust, user-friendly software and properly testing it. Not on imposing their personal, incorrect grammatical opinions about which letters their customers must use
Franco Folini
Final Thought
This minor friction on the Fineco website is a perfect reminder that a positive user experience relies entirely on the details. Digital products must adapt to their users, not the other way around. Fineco Bank needs to look past narrow code constraints, implement proper localization testing, and ensure its platforms respect the basic language rules of the very customers they serve, regardless of the country where they live.
