ING Bank Romania to accelerate business development through digitization
Customers are increasingly interacting with the bank through its digital platforms and are making more card payments, according to a report issued by ING Bank Romania.
2018-03-29 16:46:10
"Home′ Bank grew significantly in 2017, reporting 830,000 active customers accessing the internet banking platform 69.6 million times last year, 64 per cent more than in 2016," said ING. "In December alone, the number of logins reached almost eight million. 52 per cent of all ING customers have used the mobile app. The Home′Bank Platform registered 22.3 million transactions, 27 per cent more than in 2016. Platform product sales were 73 per cent higher in 2017 compared to 2016."
In 2017, over 100 million transactions were recorded through POS and e-commerce platforms, 48 per cent more than in 2016. Contactless transactions rose 140 per cent last year, from 28 million to 67.2 million transactions.
"We have a culture of innovation, and our goal is to give our customers a great experience," said Michal Szczurek on ING Bank′s strategy in Romania. "That's why we are reinventing our platforms to become a solution to our clients financial needs by introducing - for example - digital credit through Home′Bank or a platform dedicated to entrepreneurs such as ING Business."
The end of 2017 marked a commercial growth for ING Bank Romania, which had total revenues of 1.4 billion RON, against the backdrop of the continuous growth of the active client portfolio reaching 1,141,000 customers. In 2017, ING Bank Romania ranked sixth in the Romanian banking system by assets. The gross profit of the company amounted to 584 million RON and the net profit to 493 million RON, mainly due to a balanced portfolio development, a well-controlled risk profile and an increase in the number of clients.
Excluding the extra income from the sale of Visa shares in 2016, ING Bank Romania earned revenues of 112 million RON, 20 per cent more than last year, while gross profit increased by 143 million RON in 2017, up 32 per cent from 2016. Considering the revenues from the sale of Visa shares in the second quarter of 2016, the company′s revenue increased by nine per cent and gross profit by three percent.
Investments in employees and digitization have led to an increase in operating costs of 87 million RON, totalling 752 million RON, 13 per cent higher than last year, due to the diversification of the activity, the increase in the number of employees, and the regulatory costs.
"With an efficient risk management and in the context of the sustained growth of the loan portfolio, the risk costs recorded in 2017 were five million RON higher than in the previous year, with provisions totalling 97 million RON. The rate of non-performing loans continued to decline, from 3.6 per cent to 3.3 per cent, well below the market average," the report shows.
Lending increased overall by 21 per cent in 2017, from 17.6 billion RON to 21.2 billion RON, with a balanced allocation between the individual clients (56 per cent) and companies (44 per cent). Thus, the market share in lending reached 8.9 per cent, from 7.7 per cent, with a clear preference for the local currency, with RON loans accounting for 76 per cent of the total loans. Lending to SMEs increased by 45 per cent compared to the previous year.
The value of deposits increased at the same pace, with attracted funds totalling 26.8 billion RON, 20 per cent more versus 2016. At the end of last year ING market share in attracted funds was 8.4 per cent compared to 7.7 per cent.
"We are offering a different banking model, which is gaining more and more ground in Romania," Szczurek added. "In 2017 ING was probably the fastest growing organic bank. I thank the clients and the ING team for this result. The number of customers is rising steadily and, according to the latest Net Promoter Score, we rank first in the top of their preferences."
The number of active clients ING Romania reached 1,141,000 in 2017, with 280,000 new clients last year. The company focused on expanding the number of customers with ING earnings, totalling 713,000 at the end of December, 23 per cent more than in the previous year.
According to the report, ING Romania has made the transition from a traditional way of organizing to an agile model inspired by technology giants such as Amazon, Netflix or Google: "The delivery of a large number of projects, processes and services is now carried out by 11 "tribes", organized into multidisciplinary teams that have the responsibility of planning and implementing change initiatives. The new approach has improved market launch times, product quality and competitiveness, and increased productivity."
The total number of clients for ING Group increased to 37.4 million in the past year. Overall, in 2017, there was a net increase in loans of 26.9 billion Euro and a net increase of 19.0 billion Euro in the deposits segment. The group's gross profit in 2017 rose 2.4 per cent to 7.1 billion Euro. Operating expenses increased in the fourth quarter as ING accelerated investment in digitization.
* Part of Digital Finance feature from the print edition