ING

• ING is a global financial institution with a strong European base, offering banking services through its operating company ING Bank.
• The purpose of ING Bank is: empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business.
• ING Bank’s more than 59,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.
• ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).

• The purpose of ING Bank is: empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business.
• ING Bank’s more than 59,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.
• ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).
• Sustainability is an integral part of ING’s strategy, evidenced by ING’s leading position in sector benchmarks.

• The purpose of ING Bank is: empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business.
• ING Bank’s more than 59,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.
• ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).
• Sustainability is an integral part of ING’s strategy, evidenced by ING’s leading position in sector benchmarks.

• They can stand by while private businesses collapse and see the resulting loss of jobs and revenue.
• Or they can step in and use public money to prop up these firms.
• The UK boasts the second-largest collection of Nobel laureates and four of the world’s top-20 universities.

Financial woes

• The most recent data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency for the financial year ending in 2022 shows that (excluding pension adjustments, which can skew accounts for particular years) 24% of UK universities reported a deficit.
• The outgoing vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, Sir Chris Husbands, recently suggested that calls to increase fee levels could be perceived as being tone deaf.
• Of the brand names that collapsed during the 2008 global financial crisis, few will remember the Heritable Bank.
• The government, via the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, paid compensation to Heritable’s customers and, while some of these monies were recouped, the upfront costs were significant and the endgame did not see all of the cost recovered.

Consequences for students

• Despite a potential merger under consideration in Australia, there is little history of mergers between universities in the UK.
• Almost inevitably, a series of messy class action lawsuits would result, with students seeking recompense for fees paid, perhaps over multiple years, that did not result in the qualification advertised.
• Future students might become more interested in the annual financial reports of a prospective university than its traditional prospectus.

Pulling down communities

• This could range from housing, hospitality and retail being starved of income, to these and many other sectors suffering a shortage of a part-time, flexible workers.
• Somewhere between £0.5bn and £1bn is a reasonable estimate of the amount attributable to any one university.
• The university sector is not immune to the kind of industrial or technological revolutions that have swept through other industries.
• Some of our policymakers and regulators might regard a university failure as an indication that the market is working.