ING DIRECT Australia today announced a net profit after tax of $297 million for the 12 months to 31 December 2014, an increase of 9.4% on the previous year.
ING DIRECT CEO, Vaughn Richtor says the bank has been delivering on its strategy of becoming the main bank for its customers by strongly growing payment accounts, personal savings, branded mortgages and superannuation funds under management.
“We are growing the number of customers who see us as their main bank and those customers are becoming strong advocates,” Mr Richtor said.
2014 highlights include:
- Orange Everyday (payment account) customers up more than 40% to 270,000
- Personal savings up by $1.3b or 6.5%
- Total deposits up $1.16b or 3.7%
- Branded mortgages up $2.5b or 7.8%
- Total mortgages stable at $38.8b
- Superannuation funds under management up 78% to $1.1b
- Number 1 Net Promoter Score (customers willing to promote the bank to friends and family)
Mr Richtor says the strong growth in Orange Everyday payment accounts is very encouraging.
“We see the payment account as the key to being the true primary bank for our customers and that goes to the heart of our strategy,” Mr Richtor said.
Mr Richtor says ING DIRECT has been actively growing its branded mortgages while reducing the significance of white label mortgages.
Mr Richtor added, “The sale of non-branded mortgages comes with strong growth in retail mortgages while maintaining the overall size of our retail mortgage portfolio.”
ING DIRECT has also been growing business credit, increasing the portfolio to almost $4b.
“Business credit growth is diversifying the asset base of the bank and comes as ING DIRECT leverages its global and regional expertise in commercial banking.”
ING DIRECT has maintained its number 1 position on Net Promoter Score, that is the number of customers who are likely to recommend the bank to family and friends.
“We are finding that the more our customers use us as their main bank the more likely they are to recommend us to family and friends,” Mr Richtor said.
Media contact:
David Breen
Head of Corporate Affairs, ING DIRECT
Ph: 0412 933 060
Email: david.breen@ingdirect.com.au
About ING DIRECT
ING DIRECT changed the way Australians bank 15 years ago by launching the country’s first high interest, fee free online savings account. Since then, we’ve brought this low fee value to home loans, transactional banking and superannuation. With over 1.5 million customers – and $32 billion in savings and $38 billion in mortgages – ING DIRECT has the highest Net Promoter Score of any bank (NFSM, Q4 2014).