The head of sustainability at ING has said that the Dutch bank is planning to expand its existing trial with carbon footprint platform Cogo.

Cogo uses live banking data to enable consumers to track how much carbon is connected with their spending and allows them to see how much they have saved from taking action.

The move comes after the bank announced a new partnership with the carbon tracking app in August 2022.

Leon Wijnands told attendees at Money 2020 Europe that the bank was planning to scale the pilot beyond the 500,000 mobile customers it is already trialling the technology with.

He shared research from ING into the half a million users of the service which found that around 40,000 of them were active daily uses, with 74 per cent submitting positive feedback about the technology.

The head of sustainability said that there were perhaps many reasons why the bank should not be rolling out the technology, including risking backlash from consumers who might question its own lending practices. He also said that in the short term there was “no business case” in the traditional sense, instead explaining that the technology is bringing indirect impacts such as more customer engagement.

He added that in the future the technology could drive more consumer lending opportunities, for example when a customer switches from a diesel or petrol vehicle to an electric one.

Cogo chief executive Emma Kisby said that other banks who have been trialling the technology for longer periods, like NatWest, are starting to see that the platform drives traffic.

“The business case is longer,” she said. “It takes time.”

Wijnands also said that banks tend to think that they are the centre of the universe and that they need to shift their mindsets away from thinking that people make decisions purely based on finance.

“If you give a discount on a mortgage, they wont spend it on solar panels,” he said.

Money 2020 Europe is taking place at the RAI in Amsterdam 6-8 June 2023.

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