Financial education
Nowadays, consumers have to make more critical financial decisions, while the choice of products and delivery channels has increased substantially. Financial education is a key element in empowering consumers with the confidence and capacity to take more informed financial decisions. Giving individuals more insight is an essential step towards managing their financial future throughout their different life phases. We believe financial education is complementary to consumer protection and responsible behaviour of both financial institution and consumers. We support the promotion of financial literacy through a number of community investment initiatives.
More insight
Within ING we strive to enhance the financial capability of consumers and especially of our customers. A first step is providing clear and transparent information so that our customers understand our product and services. In addition we have developed a number of practical tools that help our customers to get more insight into their personal financial situation and that simplify financial decision-making.
Example:
ING Retail Life and ING Direct in the US launched an interactive website where “live” characters take visitors on a virtual journey to assess their insurance needs. Read more www.ingforlife.com/ingdirect
Different life phases
Our starting point is that education can only be effective if it is relevant to people’s needs. That is why we link our initiatives to the different phases of customers’ lives, from buying a house to managing a pension.
We are convinced that financial education should start as early as possible in customers’ lives. Therefore many of our initiatives have a special focus on youth education, starting with young customers and their parents.
Examples:
- ING Vysya Bank launched www.kidzzbank.com to help children understand the concept of money and savings.
- In the Netherlands young account holders of ING can learn about managing money and earn extra money through bizznizz.ing.nl
Community Investment
Investing in financial education is also one of ING’s community investment priorities. It is a natural way for ING to share its knowledge and skills and align its community investments with the core business. Read more
