Accessibility Statement

RapidCents is committed to making its websites usable by as many people as possible, including people who use screen readers, magnification, keyboard-only navigation, speech input or reduced-motion settings. This statement sets out the standard the site is built against, what has been implemented, how it is tested, what is known not to meet the standard yet, and how to tell us about a barrier or ask for content in another format.

1. Our commitment and the standard we build to

We build to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. We are not claiming we have reached it everywhere — we are telling you what we aim for and how we check.

RapidCents treats accessibility as part of how the site is built rather than as a remediation exercise carried out afterwards. The target standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium, applied to the public marketing surfaces described in section 2.

This statement records a target and a method, not a certificate. RapidCents does not claim full conformance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA across every page, and no third party has been engaged to assess or certify this site. Conformance is assessed on an ongoing basis: pages are checked as they are built and re-checked when the templates behind them change, and what is found is fixed or recorded in section 5.

Accessibility work continues after publication. New content, new templates and new interactive components can introduce barriers that did not exist before, which is why the review cycle in section 9 and the feedback process in section 7 both exist.

2. What this statement covers

This statement applies to the public RapidCents marketing websites: the pages served at rapidcents.com, including the Canadian English, Canadian French and United States versions of those pages, in both the light and dark themes the site offers.

It does not cover the RapidCents merchant dashboard, the payment interfaces presented to a cardholder at checkout, or the software running on payment terminals. Those are separate products with their own release cycles, and a statement that covered them without testing them would be worth nothing.

Some functionality on the marketing site is provided by embedded third-party components, including the statement comparison tool, which loads its own interface, styles and scripts from a separate service. RapidCents does not control the markup of an embedded third-party component, and the accessibility of those components may differ from the rest of the site. Where an embed presents a barrier, tell us using the process in section 7: RapidCents will either work with the provider to have it corrected or provide the same information and the same outcome another way.

Content published before this statement takes effect, and documents supplied by third parties, may not meet the target standard. Section 6 explains how to obtain that material in an accessible format.

3. What has been implemented

The following are properties of the site as built, not aspirations. Each is implemented in the shared layout and component library, which means it applies across page templates rather than to a handful of pages.

• Text contrast is tested automatically against the WCAG AA thresholds — 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text — in both the light and the dark theme, at three viewport widths, as described in section 4.
• Interactive controls are built to a minimum target size of 44 by 44 pixels, so that a control can be hit reliably by touch or by an imprecise pointer.
• Keyboard focus is visible. Controls carry an explicit focus indicator drawn on keyboard focus rather than relying on a browser default that a custom style might have removed.
• The header theme toggle and the country and language switcher are operable from the keyboard. Menus and overlays, including the switcher panel, the navigation menus and the mobile navigation overlay, close on Escape and return focus to the control that opened them.
• A skip link is the first focusable element on the page and moves focus directly to the main content region, which is marked up as a single main landmark.
• Each page declares its language with a correct lang attribute matching the locale it is served in: en-CA, fr-CA or en-US. Assistive technology needs this to choose the right pronunciation.
• Motion respects the prefers-reduced-motion setting. Where that preference is set, animation and transition durations are reduced to effectively nothing site-wide, and components that animate on scroll or on load render in their final state instead.
• The site is published in English and in Canadian French, with the same content available in both, and the switcher records your choice so it is not lost between pages.
• Layout is tested for horizontal overflow at each tested viewport, because a page that scrolls sideways at 390 pixels is a page that cannot be read at 400 percent zoom.

4. How conformance is tested

A script checks contrast on every page template, in both themes, at three screen sizes. Automated checks catch a minority of accessibility problems, so people check the rest.

RapidCents runs an automated theme and contrast audit against the site as part of the checks performed before a release. The audit loads a representative URL for every page template, in each of the three locales, in both the light and the dark theme, and at three viewports: 1440 by 900, 834 by 1112 and 390 by 844 pixels.

For each of those combinations the audit walks the text nodes on the page, resolves the background actually painted behind each one, calculates the contrast ratio, and reports any pair below the WCAG AA threshold for its text size. It also reports text that becomes effectively invisible when the theme is flipped, borders drawn in the same colour as the surface behind them, and pages that overflow horizontally at the tested width. Findings are triaged and fixed in the shared components, so a fix applies everywhere the template is used rather than on the page where it was noticed.

Automated checking has real limits, and it is important to be plain about them. Automated rules can measure contrast, detect a missing alternative text attribute and find a missing form label; they cannot judge whether alternative text is an accurate description, whether a heading order reflects the actual structure of the content, whether a keyboard user can complete a task in a sensible order, or whether an interactive component announces itself correctly to a screen reader. Those are judgements, and they are made manually.

Manual checking accompanies the automated pass: navigating pages and interactive components with a keyboard alone, confirming focus order and focus visibility, verifying that headings describe the structure they sit above, reviewing alternative text on content images, and checking pages at increased zoom.

5. Known limitations

RapidCents does not claim that every page of this site meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA today. The following are known to fall short or to be unverified, and are recorded here rather than left for a visitor to discover.

• Embedded third-party components, including the statement comparison tool, have not been assessed against WCAG 2.2 Level AA by RapidCents and are not under its control. An alternative route to the same outcome is available on request.
• Content migrated from the previous rapidcents.com website, including older articles and their images, may carry alternative text that is missing or inadequate, and heading levels that do not reflect the structure of the page. This material is being reviewed as it is revised.
• Documents made available for download, and material originating from third parties such as partners or card networks, may not meet the standard. Section 6 covers how to obtain the content in an accessible format.
• Complex illustrative graphics, including product and terminal visuals, carry a short text alternative rather than a full description of every element depicted.
• The site has not been tested against every combination of browser, operating system and assistive technology. Testing concentrates on current versions of the major browsers and screen readers.

6. Requesting content in an accessible format

If something on this site does not work for you, ask us for it another way. It is free, and we will agree the format with you.

If any information published on this site is not accessible to you, RapidCents will provide it in another format, or provide communication support so that you can use it. This includes pricing information, product details, legal documents and anything else on the public site.

Formats available on request include accessible electronic text, large print, plain text, and reading the material to you over the telephone. The format will be agreed with you, because the person making the request is the one who knows which format is usable. There is no charge for an alternate format beyond what any other person would pay for the same material, and RapidCents will supply it in a timely manner having regard to the request.

Make the request through the contact page at /contact, by telephone at +1-844-957-2743 in Canada or +1-202-902-6226 in the United States, or by mail to RapidCents Inc., 515 Consumers Road, Unit 210, North York, Ontario, M2J 4Z2, Canada. Tell us which page or document you need and, if you know it, the format that works for you.

7. Reporting a barrier, and how feedback is handled

Tell us what did not work and where. We will confirm we received it within five business days and tell you what we are doing about it.

If you encounter a barrier on this site, RapidCents wants to hear about it. A report from someone who could not complete a task is more useful than any automated report, because it identifies the thing that actually stopped a person.

Feedback can be given in whichever way is easiest for you: through the contact page at /contact, by telephone at +1-844-957-2743 in Canada or +1-202-902-6226 in the United States, in writing by mail to RapidCents Inc., 515 Consumers Road, Unit 210, North York, Ontario, M2J 4Z2, Canada, or in person at that address. If a different method would suit you better, ask and it will be arranged. Feedback may be given anonymously, although a reply is only possible if you leave a way to reach you.

It helps to include the address of the page, what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and the browser and assistive technology you were using, if you know them. None of this is required to make a report.

RapidCents will acknowledge accessibility feedback within five business days and will reply in an accessible format or with communication support if that is what you need. The acknowledgement will say what happens next: whether the barrier can be corrected quickly, whether it requires a change to a shared component or a third-party embed, and what interim route exists to the information or service you were trying to reach. Feedback is recorded and reviewed as part of the cycle in section 9, and RapidCents does not treat a report of a barrier as a complaint against the person making it.

8. Applicable frameworks

RapidCents is an Ontario-based company and approaches web accessibility with reference to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Information and Communications Standards made under it, which address accessible websites and web content, accessible formats and communication supports on request, and a process for receiving and responding to feedback. Sections 6 and 7 set out how RapidCents meets the accessible-format and feedback requirements.

As a Canadian organization, RapidCents also has regard to the Accessible Canada Act and its objective of identifying, removing and preventing barriers, including in information and communication technologies. WCAG 2.2 Level AA is the technical standard used to give those obligations a measurable form, as described in section 1.

In the United States, accessibility of web content is addressed principally through the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, for federal agencies and their contractors, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which adopts WCAG success criteria as its technical baseline. RapidCents builds to WCAG 2.2 Level AA on its United States pages for the same reasons it does in Canada. RapidCents makes no determination or representation as to conformance with Section 508 or the ADA, as no assessment against either has been carried out.

Nothing in this statement limits any right you have under accessibility or human rights legislation, and nothing in it is a waiver of any obligation RapidCents owes under that legislation.

9. Review and updates to this statement

This statement is reviewed at least once every twelve months, and sooner when a page template changes materially, when a new interactive component or third-party embed is added, when the target standard is revised, or when feedback identifies a barrier that changes what section 5 should say.

Each review covers the same ground: the automated audit is run again across the templates, the manual checks in section 4 are repeated on the components that changed, the known limitations in section 5 are re-verified so that items which have been fixed are removed and newly identified items are added, and the feedback received since the last review is examined for patterns rather than treated only case by case.

The revision date at the head of this page changes with every edit; the effective date changes when the substance of the commitments changes. Earlier versions are superseded on the date a new version takes effect.