"SETTING THE STANDARD IN HELPING OUR CUSTOMERS MANAGE THEIR FINANCIAL FUTURE".
With this strong mission statement ING.com is an online global financial service that provides insurance, banking, and assets management service in over 50 countries. ING is one of the 20th largest financial institutions worldwide and ranked in the top 10 in Europe. However, ING is also a top five provider in the United States of retirement services and life insurance. ING was started 1990 when the legal restrictions on mergers between insurers and banks in the Netherlands. This positioned insurance company Nationale-Nederlanden and banking company NMB Post bank Group to enter into negotiations. The merger into Internationale Nederland Group took place in 1991. These actions gave the market the abbreviated name ING. With ING taking place, ING Direct is a leading direct bank with over 15 million customers in nine large countries such as Asia, Central Europe and South America. Making them a large asset manager, with assets under management around 500 billion.
ING's CEO showed the world how to do online banking. That CEO was Arkadi Kuhlmann. Prior to CEO for ING Kuhlmann was vice president of Royal Bank of Canada where he picked up many skills. However what inspired Kuhlmann the most to succeed was his frustration with banks. Many banks hit customers with many fee's, and the hassle to keep your private information from being sold to other companies. However Kuhlman was able to change things. Even though ING has no branches, no ATMs and no checkbooks it still survived. With the high expenses to buy branches around the world the company decided to experiment. They decided to run an experiment communicating with customers by phone, mail and internet. With the money put forth into this company ING could offer a significantly higher interest rate on savings accounts, a way to win customers over; creating a competitive advantage.
Customers benefit from ING by its appealing interest rates. ING Direct pays 4.5% on a savings account while the average gives 0.46%(Bankrate.com). They also offer one type of savings account and one type of checking account. With this offer it gave customers the advantage of no fees and no minimum balances. Since ING focuses on what customers want, it has more than 5 million account holders and has up to 100,000 signing up each month. With their short existence ING has become an international company that is continuing to grow, and seeking to maximize their ability to succeed by offering the best pensions, emergencies markets, and direct banking.
ING's CEO showed the world how to do online banking. That CEO was Arkadi Kuhlmann. Prior to CEO for ING Kuhlmann was vice president of Royal Bank of Canada where he picked up many skills. However what inspired Kuhlmann the most to succeed was his frustration with banks. Many banks hit customers with many fee's, and the hassle to keep your private information from being sold to other companies. However Kuhlman was able to change things. Even though ING has no branches, no ATMs and no checkbooks it still survived. With the high expenses to buy branches around the world the company decided to experiment. They decided to run an experiment communicating with customers by phone, mail and internet. With the money put forth into this company ING could offer a significantly higher interest rate on savings accounts, a way to win customers over; creating a competitive advantage.
Customers benefit from ING by its appealing interest rates. ING Direct pays 4.5% on a savings account while the average gives 0.46%(Bankrate.com). They also offer one type of savings account and one type of checking account. With this offer it gave customers the advantage of no fees and no minimum balances. Since ING focuses on what customers want, it has more than 5 million account holders and has up to 100,000 signing up each month. With their short existence ING has become an international company that is continuing to grow, and seeking to maximize their ability to succeed by offering the best pensions, emergencies markets, and direct banking.
