Netherlands-based ING Bank has identified AI and analytics as a critical priority as digital usership ticked up in the third quarter.

The $967 billion bank is looking to implement generative AI for coding and within its contact centers, Bahadir Yilmaz, chief analytics officer at ING, told Bank Automation News. 

“Starting from top business priorities, we would like to position analytics and AI as the most critical enabler in transforming the way we operate,” Yilmaz said. “We have the people, the knowledge and the management support to achieve these goals.” 

The bank plans to use AI “to streamline a process and create a journey that our customers want” as customers “prefer a shorter, easier journey,” he said.  

According to the bank’s recent Q3 earnings report, 75% of onboarding for customers in the Netherlands is done digitally and 62% of ING’s customers are mobile-only users. 

Focus on digital banking  

As the bank leans on AI to enrich the customer experience, ING is also improving its overall digital banking experience, according to its Nov. 2 Q3 earnings call.  

“Apart from generative AI and large language models (LLMs), we are using proven AI techniques to transform almost all our business processes,” Yilmaz said. “The most important areas for us are lending, pricing and personalization, [know your customer] client services and sustainability.” 

For example, ING is exploring the use of AI to speed up loan decisioning, which will lead to a “significant increase in customer satisfaction,” he said. 

The bank’s focus on digital products and services has attracted more customers, and ING aims to continue to improve its digital banking offerings to gain market share and improve customer satisfaction, Chief Executive Steven van Rijswijk said during the earnings call. 

ING added 181,000 customers in Q3, compared to 139,000 customers in Q3 2022, according to the bank’s earnings presentation. 

“We have been working very hard in making our organization more digital,” van Rijswijk said. “And that’s not only branches, that’s also how we respond to customers and how we deal with call centers.” 

ING’s European peers like $1.9 trillion Lloyds Bank, $578 billion Deutsche Bank, and $890 billion NatWest are also increasing tech investments and developing AI capabilities to improve customer experience. 

ING Bank aims to develop AI tools and use cases in accordance with “the latest developments in the market, so we must stay relevant,” while taking a “safe approach towards technologies like generative AI,” Yilmaz said. 

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