Awards for Excellence 2020
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As you’d expect from ING, Euromoney’s best bank for transaction services in Western Europe, technological innovation a plays a central role in its wholesale banking offering.
This is in large part thanks to ING’s global head of transaction services, Mark Buitenhek, who has led the division for more than five years.
This year, ING’s digital-first approach made a number of advances through services developed in-house and fintech partnerships, including those involved with ING Ventures, as in its early investment in Dutch multi-banking transaction services fintech Cobase.
During the year, ING formed a new cash advisory and structuring team for complex transactions. It took a 75% stake in Payvision, a fast-growing international payments firm. It remains one of the world’s leading partner banks in the use of blockchain in trade finance through Easy Trading Connect, Komgo, Vakt, Marco Polo and Contour (previously Voltron).
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Mark Buitenhek |
ING Developer Portal also launched its API Payment Request function, allowing clients to add a lightweight payment option to their own app, with the payment details appearing on the consumer’s smartphone. Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn and furniture firm Ikea are among its adopters.
The firm’s Virtual Cash Management product, a kind of multi-bank dashboard, won more converts.
The Virtual Bank Account has moved from an initial focus on real-time pooling of incoming payments to adding funding for outgoing transactions too, VBA Receiveables. The product gives clients the benefits of using a single bank account, even though Europe’s fiscal and regulatory differences require the use of different accounts in each state.
ING’s partnership with TransferMate also progressed. The latter makes use of cross-border API technology and a network of global payment licences to allow foreign-currency payments based on local accounts and clearing, avoiding the intermediation of correspondent banks and consequently reducing the administrative burden and costs.
ING is one of the few banks to have large commercial banking operations in most big Western European states. In Scandinavia it has developed its Nordic re-account service, allowing corporate clients to make and receive payments using the local payment network and without needing a bank account with a local bank.
