ING DIRECT Among the Best Places to Work in Greater Toronto

    
    Canada's Leading Online Bank made MediaCorp's list for Greater Toronto's
    Top 90 Employers
    

TORONTO , Oct. 20 /CNW/ - ING DIRECT, Canada's leading online bank, is named as a Greater Toronto Top Employer for 2010.

"We are thrilled to be recognized as a leading employer in Toronto ," said Peter Aceto , President & CEO at ING DIRECT. "For ING DIRECT it is our employees that are the key to providing the best products and service to our customers, period. Maintaining a work environment that permits employees to be empowered, excited and united is one of our top priorities."

Applicants for the Top Employers competition were graded on eight key areas including Work and Social Atmosphere, Health Benefits, Employee Communications and Community Involvement. These criteria have remained consistent since the inception of the national competition, now in its 10th year.

"ING DIRECT's unique culture is a driver of our employee engagement and a key to our business success," said Rob Landry , head of the human resources and legal functions at ING DIRECT. "Because we don't operate in a hierarchical way, all employees are directly a part of ensuring that success through hands on involvement - whether it is suggesting and collaborating on innovative ideas, WOWing our customers or giving back to communities across Canada through various grass roots initiatives. We call it showing your Orange Spirit."

ING DIRECT's positive and energetic work environment, its communications focus and its programs to support a flexible and family-friendly workplace were among some of the key features taken into consideration in the selection process. Also important in the selection was ING DIRECT's commitment to giving back to the community through employee lead initiatives, such as the recently completed Orange in the Community project, where nearly 500 ING DIRECT employees volunteered to help build a new natural playground in a local Toronto community.

About Greater Toronto's Top Employers (2010)

Selection Criteria & Applicant Statistics

To develop this year's list of the Greater Toronto's Top Employers, editors at Mediacorp Canada Inc. examined the recruitment histories of over 75,000 employers across Canada that it tracks for its popular job search site, Eluta.ca. From this initial group, Mediacorp editors invited 16,000 of the fastest-growing employers to apply, plus another 8,000 companies and organizations in industries that they wanted to examine more closely.

Employers completed an extensive application process that included a detailed review of their operations and HR practices. Over 2,600 employers started this year's application process nationally. The final applicant pool was up 3.7% over last year's total, which was also a record.

About ING DIRECT

ING DIRECT is Canada's leading direct bank with over 1.6 million Clients and more than $27 billion in total assets. ING DIRECT gives the power of saving to all Canadians by offering high-value, simple products such as high interest savings accounts with no fees or service charges and low rates on mortgages. Low cost, index-based mutual funds are sold through ING DIRECT Funds Limited. ING DIRECT Canada has been operating since 1997, and has paid more than $4 billion in interest to Clients. ING DIRECT is open for banking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at www.ingdirect.ca or by calling 1-800 ING DIRECT (1-800-464-3473).

Style note to Editors: ING DIRECT is always capitalized and never referred to as ING.

For further information: Public Relations: Lynnette Visaya, Phone: [phone], Cell: [phone], [email protected]