ING DIRECT Mobile Banking App Wins BlackBerry Achievement Award for 'Putting Customers First'

TORONTO, May 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - ING DIRECT has been recognized for its unique mobile banking experience on BlackBerry^® 10 smartphones. The bank, which was the first Canadian financial institution to introduce a BlackBerry 10 app, has won the BlackBerry Achievement Award in the 'Putting Customers First' category, which acknowledges customer-centric experiences that make a business stand out.

The ING DIRECT mobile app provides customers with a convenient and secure way to conduct their banking transactions. The app puts an increased focus on savings through features like "Orange Alerts", pushing notifications to the BlackBerry® Hub for triggers such as account balances reaching pre-determined thresholds. This is just one of the intuitive features the bank has built into its mobile app with the aim to simplify and modernize banking for all Canadians.

"Business should always be about the client," said Charaka Kithulegoda, Chief Information Officer, ING DIRECT. "Being able to support our clients on the latest devices, like BlackBerry 10, is critical, and we're thrilled that our mobile app has been recognized for our customer-focused approach. It took our team only six weeks to develop our app on the BlackBerry 10, which is a testament to the platform's capability."

Based on nominations submitted, the BlackBerry Achievement Awards selection committee chose three finalists for each award category. The public then voted online for these finalists, based on their favourite entries. The winner in each category was the finalist with the largest number of votes. Over 11,000 votes were received in the "Putting Customers First" category.

Voting took place from March 28 to April 15, 2013, with winners officially announced at BlackBerry Live™ 2013.

About ING DIRECT
ING Bank of Canada, operating under the trade name of ING DIRECT, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bank of Nova Scotia. ING DIRECT is Canada's leading direct bank with over 1.8 million Clients and close to $40 billion in total assets. ING DIRECT is a bright way forward in everyday banking for Canadians, offering value added, simple products such as high interest savings accounts, including TFSAs, GICs and RSPs with no fees or service charges, low rates on mortgages and a no-fee, daily chequing account that actually pays interest. ING DIRECT has been operating in Canada since 1997, and has paid more than $5 billion in interest to Clients. ING DIRECT is open for banking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at ingdirect.ca, on mobile devices at m.ingdirect.ca or by calling 1-800 ING DIRECT (1-800-464-3473).

ING Bank of Canada and its subsidiaries have been acquired by The Bank of Nova Scotia and are no longer affiliated with ING Groep N.V. The trademarks ING, ING DIRECT, ING Lion, the ING Lion logo and any derivation, variation, translation or adaptation thereof are trademarks of ING Groep N.V. and are used under license.

® BlackBerry is a registered trademark of Research in Motion.
™ BlackBerry Live is a trademark of Research in Motion.

SOURCE ING DIRECT