ING Direct Spain: Managing Increasing Complexity While Offering Simplicity

Originally started as a mono-line business focused purely on savings, by late 2012 ING Direct Spain was well on its way to becoming a full-service bank. To achieve that goal, the direct bank had substantially increased its portfolio of products and channels over the years. ING Direct’s original business was built on providing “simple,” “transparent,” “good value for money” products to customers in an “easy to deal with” way at low cost supported by a direct model. In many ways, ING Direct Spain was still simpler than most banks. But with the growth in its product portfolio during the previous decade and the ambitious goal of becoming a full-service bank, increasing complexity seemed inevitable. ING Direct Spain was finding that it needed to decide which complexity was creating value for its customers and which wasn’t. This case study describes how ING Direct Spain addresses the challenges of a growing company whose pronounced aim it is to provide customers with simple banking services.