We, as ING Group, stepped into the Turkish market in December 2007 by purchasing 100% of the shares of Oyak Bank from Oyak Group. We, as ING Bank, started to offer our world standard financial services to our retail and corporate customers in Türkiye as of July 7, 2008. In the light of our brand strategy, which is focused on digitalization and innovation, we dropped the "Bank" from our name in 2019 in order to emphasize our leading approach in the transformation of the financial sector and our concept of becoming a technology company holding a banking license. Now, we are just ING and proud of what we don't have.
We, as ING Group, offer service to our individual and corporate customers in 40 countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia, with more than 53 thousand employees. Through the "Think Forward" approach we adopt as our global strategy, we aim to enable our customers to be always one step ahead in their private and business lives. We adopt a growth-oriented strategy in digital banking by backing our claim on new-generation banking.
For us, banking means being "a companion offering easy, effortless and rapid financial solutions anytime and anywhere". As being among the pioneers of new-generation banking, we offer innovative products and services, while reaching our customers through branches, digital channels, strategic business partnerships and mobile sales force.
We focus much more on savings and innovation through the banking strategy we have set in parallel with the sustainable economic growth of Türkiye. Through the smart financial solutions we offer, we aim to become the primary bank of the companies both in Türkiye and other countries where they operate. Thanks to our global network, experience and knowledge, we offer consultancy and financial support for the investments of our SME, Commercial and Corporate customers engaged in international trade.
In line with our responsible banking approach, we believe that social investments are just as important as economic investments. We also make various social investments in order to fulfill our responsibilities towards the society we live in.
• We initiated a social responsibility project called Turuncu Damla (Orange Drop) and started to provide saving-focused financial literacy training for the primary school students so as to support our target of being the leading savings bank. Our program, which has reached 39,740 students in 335 schools in 8 provinces, also leads the way in that it allows scientific measurement of the results thereof.
• We have been carrying out Türkiye's Saving Trends Survey since 2011 in order to draw attention to low savings rate, which is one of the most important problems of Turkish economy, and to contribute to elimination of the lack of statistical data in this regard.
• We, as an organization that supports gender equality at all times, support many projects enabling women to become empowered in both social and economic terms. With ING's Project for Olympic Girls, we assume the official sponsorship of 8 female athletes getting ready to compete for Türkiye at Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, which has been postponed to 2020.
• As part of social investments, we continue to support arts and sports at the same pace, and we are proud to be the title sponsor of ING Türkiye Basketball Super League and changeless color of basketball.
• We carry out the program ING's From Generation to Generation Management Academy in cooperation with Bogazici University in order to contribute to institutionalization of the family-owned companies and increasing their competitive power.