Bank of Ireland launches financial well being programme

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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EMBARGOED 07:00am 11th March

One Third of Irish Consumers Are Worried About Their Finances



Bank of Ireland Announce Five Year Financial Wellbeing Programme



  • Programme to support consumer financial capability and confidence
  • €5 million investment will support over 200,000 consumers in 2019
  • Programme to run from 2019 to 2023 as the initial phase of Bank of Ireland’s long-term approach to improve customers’ Financial Wellbeing


EMBARGOED 07:00am Monday, 11th March 2019: Bank of Ireland has today announced a new programme to support consumer capability and confidence when it comes to their personal finances. This programme is part of the bank’s long-term approach to improve the Financial Wellbeing of consumers in Ireland, enabling them to thrive.

The Bank of Ireland Financial Wellbeing Programme – which will run to 2023 – is grounded in nationally representative research* which sheds light on consumer levels of Financial Wellbeing across Ireland. According to the research one third (34%) of people in Ireland are very worried about personal finances, more than half (55%) have no pension, and one in four would last less than a month without having to borrow if they lost their main source of income.

Key research findings include:

  • Ireland has a national Financial Wellbeing score average of 61. This means that as a nation we are “Managing” financially but not “Thriving”, which is the optimum category of Financial Wellbeing.
  • One quarter of those classed as financially struggling are ABC1 consumers, and almost one in five (18%) of Irish households at the higher end of the income spectrum are struggling or stretched with their finances.
  • Almost half (49%) of consumers don’t feel confident about managing their money.
  • Over a third (37%) of consumers feel that financial advice is only relevant for consumers who have large amounts of money to invest.
  • When it comes to personal debt, six in 10 consumers have some debt and one in six have too much.
  • Almost one fifth (18%) of consumers are sometimes or regularly overdrawn.
  • The majority (77%) of consumers hold some form of loan and one in four (23%) have two loans.
To respond to this challenge, a programme of activity has been developed to help customers improve their financial literacy, capability and confidence, with €5 million devoted to the roll out of the programme in 2019.

Commenting on the programme, Gavin Kelly, CEO Retail Ireland, Bank of Ireland said:

“Our purpose is to enable our customers, colleagues and communities to thrive. That means being with our customers every step of the way as they make life decisions.

“Financial wellbeing is about what you do with your pot of money, not the size of it. It’s about making sure that you can cover day-to-day expenses, plan for the future and cope with the unexpected, enabling you to do the most with what you have. Our research shows that the majority of people in Ireland are not in as much control of their finances as they want to be.

“Through our programme, we want to help consumers build a better relationship with money, empower them to take control of their daily finances and ultimately support better financial decision making for themselves, their families, and their businesses. Consumers and businesses can improve their financial wellbeing in the same way as they improve their physical health or fitness – through awareness, setting goals, and support.

“As a bank, we have challenged ourselves if we are doing enough to support customers in fulfilling their financial potential. We believe we can do much more, and are setting firm commitments and targets to provide the relevant knowledge, tools and assistance to our customers. Our ambition is to give access to over 200,000 consumers to our Bank of Ireland Financial Wellbeing programme in 2019, which we hope can make a positive impact nationally.”

Key elements of the Bank of Ireland Financial Wellbeing Programme include:


  1. Financial Wellbeing Health Checks –tools for consumers and businesses to check their own Financial Wellbeing score and access a range of supports to help them begin their Financial Wellbeing Journey. Customers who check their own score will also be able to sign up for seminars and one-to-one financial adviser meetings. The Bank expects to support 100,000 consumers through these channels to end of 2019.


  1. A significant expansion of the Bank of Ireland Youth Financial Literacy Programme, offering the programme to every primary and secondary school student in Ireland. The programme will provide young people with access to financial education and practical tools to enable them to learn lifelong skills and make informed financial decisions.


  1. A Financial Wellbeing Lab which will become a centre of excellence for piloting and road testing new innovations, drawing from national and international best practice, to help our customers manage their finances, plan for the future, and thrive.

The delivery of these activities will be supported by a dedicated Financial Wellbeing Team including a team of Financial Wellbeing coaches.


For more information and to check your Financial Wellbeing visit:

www.bankifireland.com/financialwellbeing

Notes to Editor:

* To gauge the Financial Wellbeing of the people in Ireland, Bank of Ireland conducted nationally representative research among 2,770 people with Red C in 2018. This included customers and non-customers across a wide range of age demographics from all four provinces. Bank of Ireland will conduct this research on an annual basis as part of our 2019-23 Financial Wellbeing Programme to track and improve the Financial Wellbeing of our customers and contribute positively to the nation’s overall level of Financial Wellbeing.
 
I have sent out this press release just now.

Hypocrisy of Bank of Ireland's Financial Wellbeing initiative



Brendan Burgess of the Fair Mortgage Rates Campaign accuses Bank of Ireland of hypocrisy over Financial Well Being initiative

Thousands of Bank of Ireland customers are paying a Standard Variable Rate of 4.5% when the average rate across the eurozone is 1.7%. This amounts to additional interest of €500 a month or €6,000 a year on a €200,000 mortgage.

Bank of Ireland’s stated policy is to keep variable rates high forcing existing customers to fix if they want to lower their rate. Of course, by fixing, they stay locked in to Bank of Ireland.

Bank of Ireland introduced cash back for new customers. This is how they compete for new business instead of competing on mortgage rates. So they can get new customers without cutting the rates for their existing customers.

Bank of Ireland actively exploits the inertia and ignorance of their customers.

Brendan Burgess said today that Bank of Ireland could contribute to the financial wellbeing of their customers by treating them fairly. Tricking new customers with cash back and exploiting the ignorance and inertia of existing customers does not contribute to their financial wellbeing.

It is rank hypocrisy to promote financial wellbeing while charging these customers €6,000 extra interest each year.

These extortionate mortgage rates contribute €150 million in extra profits each year to Bank of Ireland’s financial wellbeing at the expense of their customers’ wellbeing.

Francesca McDonagh made a good start in her role as Chief Executive by sorting out many of the tracker problems. She now needs to address Bank of Ireland’s exploitation of mortgage customers.

Brendan Burgess
 
In any case, the eight questions on their Financial Well Being site are pretty innocuous and don't really go beyond chapter one of any of the multitude of books available on personal finance.
 
This is the one with the tragic It Begins Ad. I didnt know what was being advertised. Obvious sign of a scam slash corporate whitewash.
 
"A significant expansion of the Bank of Ireland Youth Financial Literacy Programme, offering the programme to every primary and secondary school student in Ireland. The programme will provide young people with access to financial education and practical tools to enable them to learn lifelong skills and make informed financial decisions."

Isn't this something that is mentioned a lot on here? Surely any financial education is better than none. And like with other programs, it might trickle up the way. I recall doing a household budget in my teens. My parents wouldn't have had anything written down.
 
UB did this years ago (not with the schools bit though) and it never took off, it was part of something that was rolled out by RBS in UK but the Irish version flopped, don't know if the RBS one went any better. In fairness at the time anyway it was not a review based on trying to sell products and there was special budgeting training etc for it.

It might make more sense as an educational tool for the schools, I don't think Irish people are very inclined to go into their banks and spill their guts about the details of their budgeting in general and ask for advice. Might be a good idea to refer customers to that service when they have arrears though, I always thought it should be mandatory to have to do some sort of budgeting/money advice appointment when people are in difficulties.
 
misemoi said:
"A significant expansion of the Bank of Ireland Youth Financial Literacy Programme, offering the programme to every primary and secondary school student in Ireland. The programme will provide young people with access to financial education and practical tools to enable them to learn lifelong skills and make informed financial decisions."

Isn't this something that is mentioned a lot on here? Surely any financial education is better than none. And like with other programs, it might trickle up the way. I recall doing a household budget in my teens. My parents wouldn't have had anything written down.
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I'd prefer it if it was part of the curriculum. In say Civics class. Every child should not leave school until they know what a mortgage is, what an overdraft is, understand simple and compound interest, know how to handle credit cards etc.
 
Bronte said:
I'd prefer it if it was part of the curriculum. In say Civics class. Every child should not leave school until they know what a mortgage is, what an overdraft is, understand simple and compound interest, know how to handle credit cards etc.
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While I agree with this the information should not come from a vested interest. I know in Australia banks use similar schemes to sign up teenagers for their services.
 
Bronte said:
I'd prefer it if it was part of the curriculum. In say Civics class. Every child should not leave school until they know what a mortgage is, what an overdraft is, understand simple and compound interest, know how to handle credit cards etc.
Click to expand...
Then some people would never leave school:)

Finance concepts are not hard to understand when you have a reasonable grasp of arithmetic, algebra and statistics. But you need that first.

I would prefer if they just focussed on numeracy and literacy. Once you have those you can learn most things.
 
It shouldn't come from a vested interest in theory but is anyone else doing it? Isn't this part of MABS role but don't think they do that much of it either.
 
Way back when I was in secondary school BofI helped us with the school bank or something. Came in and did a presentation and signed us all up as customers. Which was entirely their point. Same thing in college with the students. It's about future customers and products. From a vested interest.

Fact: You're more likely to divorce than move banks.
 
Monbretia said:
UB did this years ago (not with the schools bit though) and it never took off, it was part of something that was rolled out by RBS in UK but the Irish version flopped, don't know if the RBS one went any better. In fairness at the time anyway it was not a review based on trying to sell products and there was special budgeting training etc for it.
Click to expand...

Wow, that takes me back! I remember them bringing that to the school I was in at the time, it really was just an exercise in capturing future market. After the initial enthusiasm and once they had everyone's accounts opened, they stopped showing up. Sounds like the boI scheme might be along the same lines and just another means of exploiting inertia.
 
No no Leo, the UB one I'm talking about was much later than that, it came after the RBS takeover and was not a school thing at all, it was geared to people calling in to the branches for a financial review, not the sort they usually do, this was budgeting/financial advice and open to customers and non customers alike.

The going to schools thing to open accounts and give you a pound was done by nearly all banks, when I was a junior in BofI I used to do that and that wasn't today or yesterday!
 
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