ING Direct Australia

ING Bank (Australia) Limited

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Type	Subsidiary (of ING Group)
Industry	Banking, financial services
Founded	1999
Headquarters	140 Sussex Street, Sydney, Australia,
Area served	Australia
Key people	Vaughn Richtor, CEO
Products	Finance and insurance Consumer banking Corporate banking Superannuation Mortgages
Revenue	A$679 million (2015)
Profit	A$315 million (2015)
Total assets	A$50 billion (2015)
Number of employees	1,056 (December 2015)
Divisions	Mortgages, Savings, Personal loans
Slogan	How banking can be
Website	www.ingdirect.com.au

ING DIRECT Australia building in Sydney, Australia

ING Bank (Australia) Limited (traded as ING Direct) is an Australian direct bank and a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational Dutch bank, ING Group.

ING Bank (Australia) operates as a series of controlled entities: trusts and the primary bank division, ING Direct, which operates under the segments of Mortgages, Savings and Commercial Loans. Founded in 1999 as a subsidiary of ING Group, ING Direct was Australia's first direct bank and has since grown to become the largest mortgage lender outside of Australia's big four banks. ING Direct scores favourably with customer satisfaction and has the highest net promoter score of any financial institution in Australia.

As of December 2015, the bank had $33.3 billion total deposits with 418,049 Orange Everyday transaction accounts open and a mortgage portfolio valued at AU$38.6 billion. ING Direct living super has AU$1.6 billion funds under management and in 2014 had 34,000 active accounts.

History

Vaughn Richtor was the founding CEO of ING Direct Australia in 1999 after first joining ING Group in 1992. Richtor left Australia in 2005 to head ING Group's Indian operations, India Vysya before overseeing commercial and retail management in Asia from 2009. Erik Drok served as ING Direct Australia CEO from 2005 to 2009, followed by Don Koch until 2012. Vaughn Richtor returned as CEO 2012 whilst remaining to oversee management in Asia for ING Group.

In September 2009 ING Bank Australia sold its AU$1.86 billion insurance and wealth management stake it had shared with ANZ in a joint venture since 2002 (51% ING Group ownership; 49% ANZ ownership), making ANZ the sole owner. The divestment of ING Insurance Australia followed similar measures globally as part of ING Group's structural changes as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2010, ING Insurance was subsequently rebranded as OnePath.

In December 2009, a former ING Bank Australia employee faced court after defrauding the company of US$45million over the course of five years, of which US$13million had been taken during the previous year alone. The accountant had been employed at ING Bank for almost 20 years and was arrested by police after investigation by the organisation's internal security department. For the time from 2001 to 2012, the ING Direct incident was reported to be the largest case of financial fraud in Australia. Following a review in 2013, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal reduced her maximum sentence from 15 years to 12.

Announced in March 2012, ING Direct Australia completed an upgrade of IT infrastructure in 2014. The "Zero Touch" project involved moving the bank's entire operations into a private cloud - which was claimed to be the first for any bank in Australia. Dubbed 'Bank in a box', virtualization of the entire banking platform allows for simultaneous copies of the banking platform to exist on the company's servers. This provides greater flexibility and efficiency for developing new products and services, and the new virtualization technology will also improve redundancy measures and customer experience.

In September 2012, ING Direct entered the superannuation market with Living Super, a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF).

Uday Sareen is expected to replace Vaugn Richtor as CEO for ING Direct Australia in June 2016 after Richtor announced his plans to retire from business.

Retail Banking Services

ING Direct offers a variety of banking accounts and financial services to Australian residents. Operating as a direct bank, ING Direct has no ATM network or branches, with exception of the customer service lounge at the ING Direct headquarters in Sydney. Services and support are provided over the phone or through online banking. No-fee access to any Australian ATM is provided through a loyalty program.

Products

• Business savings and commercial mortgage accounts
• Retail and Self-Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSFs) with life insurance
• Savings and time deposit accounts
• Transaction accounts
• Variable and fixed-rate Mortgage loans

Financial Claims Scheme

ING Direct deposits are guaranteed up to AU$250,000 under the Australian government's Financial Claims Scheme, since ING Direct operates as a foreign subsidiary with an Australian banking license.

In October 2008, ING Direct suffered a US$749 million outflow of deposit funds, with retail outflows totaling AU$1.5 billion during 2008. The loss of deposits came amid consumer uncertainty as to whether the Australian government's deposit guarantee measures put in place during the Global Financial crisis applied to foreign-owned banks. Despite the outflow, deposits soon stabilized with ING Direct achieving a net income of AU$182 million for 2008, up from 2007.

Advertising

In 2007, Billy Connolly was recruited to be in the first major advertising campaign for the bank, launching the new slogan: It's your money. Connolly had previously served as the face for the insurance arm, ING Insurance.

'Charles', an animated orangutan appearing in a series of ads, replaced Billy Connolly in 2010 in part of an AU$5 million campaign over ten weeks.

ING Direct changed its slogan to Spend your life well in 2012.

In June 2015 Isla Fisher became the brand ambassador for the bank, alongside a new tagline How banking can be, as part of an AU$10 million brand overhaul.

See also

• ING Group § ING Direct

External links

• Official website
• ING Group