ING Launching Europe-Wide Banking Platform

ING Group announced on Friday (July 1) that it is planning to launch a Europe-wide website that will enable its customers to handle their bank account services, including money transfers.

Reuters reported that ING’s aggregator websites will bring the ability to manage a bank account all in one place — an effort to keep pace with growing competition from nonbank rivals.

There are also regulatory changes on the horizon that are expected to increase the increasingly competitive nature of online banking.

The EU’s revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) will require member states to provide the ability for customers to perform banking transfers between accounts with the assistance of third-party players by Jan. 2018, Reuters said.

“We are, in many countries, still a challenger, so for us, aggregating accounts is certainly a way forward to access more customers,” Benoit Legrand, head of FinTech for ING, told Reuters.

“We are not doing anything specifically in France as such, but we are working on a European development,” Legrand explained during a recent interview, confirming that ING has concrete plans to move forward with the initiative.

The aggregator sites may also include additional services, such as suggesting updates to loan terms or proposing account updates based on forthcoming payments.

ING is looking to strengthen its standing against U.S. banks, and according to reports, the Netherlands-based institution is looking to the internet to strengthen its competitive edge with business clients.

Reports published last year said ING Bank rolled out its InsideBusiness digital banking platform to allow corporate borrowers to do their banking remotely on a computer or smartphone.