ING Everyday Round Up Promotes Painless Savings

Saving money, especially these days, can be a tall order. Sometimes it looks like every dollar that comes in that month has a purpose earmarked, and sometimes, within the first two weeks. Saving loose change, however, is something that most everyone can get behind. ING brought out a system that makes this notion easier to handle: Everyday Round Up.

Everyday Round Up is a clever notion; it takes those mobile payments purchases so many make every day and artificially rounds up the price of said purchases to the nearest dollar or the nearest $5—that $30.48 you pay for a stack of used DVDs suddenly becomes $31 or $35, for example—and the excess is moved to a customer’s savings account. In our DVD example, a customer would either drop $0.52 or $4.52 into savings.

Australians, in surprising numbers, are opposed to carrying coins. Twenty-eight percent of respondents in an ING study conducted by Galaxy Research said as much. What’s even more surprising are the numbers so opposed to coin they just throw it away. Fully 93 percent have thrown out five-cent coins, while 29 percent have tossed 10 cent pieces. Reasons vary, from the 40 percent who toss five-cent coins for a lack of purpose—considering that 20 make a dollar, is that such a smart move?—to 29 percent who find coin inconvenient and 27 percent who believe it unduly bulks up a wallet.

ING’s head of product in Australia Tim Newman noted “Not only can contactless payments ensure you’re not carrying loose change, contactless also ensures you’re not losing or throwing your money away.”

The concept effectively weaponizes—this time in favor of the saver instead of against—the notion that cash not in hand is more freely spent. This time, however, it’s cash not in hand is more readily stashed. After all, when people are picking up some impulse-buy or another at the checkout, does it really matter to most whether it’s $1.05 or $2?

Not really, I’d figure, and ING seems to agree. You get the thing you want and you store a little cash besides. Just like that change jar on the dresser, a few months of that and pretty soon it’s real money. Painless saving can be a real boon to those who don’t ordinarily save.