Online Banking: Good Start for ING Direct, But Can It Last?

Bank Technology News, June, 2002 by Steve Bills

It seems like a flashback to dot-com days: A fledgling online bank quadrupled its assets last year, to $3.6 billion, and its chief executive officer says assets have more than doubled again this year, topping $8 billion.

But this is no replay of the Internet bubble, nor is ING Direct a typical fledgling.

"We've just completed our second month of profitability, two years ahead of plan. That's not bad for a start-up," Arkadi Kuhlmann, the chief executive officer, said in a recent interview.

He rejects the characterization of the Wilmington, DE, federal savings bank as an Internet bank, even though the Web is its primary customer channel. "We classify ourselves as the only direct consumer bank" in the United States, he said. "We're actually a pure S&L,"

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