History
Vaughn Richtor was the founding chief executive officer of ING DIRECT Australia in 1999, having joined ING Group in 1992. Richtor left Australia in 2005 to head ING Group's Indian operations, ING Vysya Bank before overseeing commercial and retail management in Asia from 2009.[7][8] Erik Drok served as CEO from 2005 to 2009, followed by Don Koch until 2012.[9] Vaughn Richtor returned as CEO 2012 while remaining to oversee management in Asia for ING Group.
In September 2009, the bank sold OnePath, its AU$1.86 billion insurance and wealth management stake it had shared with the ANZ Bank in a joint venture since 2002 (51% ING Group ownership; 49% ANZ ownership[10]), making ANZ the sole owner.[11][12] The divestment of ING Insurance Australia followed similar measures globally as part of ING Group's structural changes as a result of the 2008 financial crisis.[13] In 2010, ING Insurance was subsequently rebranded as OnePath.[14]
Announced in March 2012, the bank completed an upgrade of IT infrastructure in 2014.[15] The "Zero Touch" project involved moving the bank's entire operations into a private cloud, claimed to be the first for any bank in Australia.[16] Dubbed 'Bank in a box', virtualization of the entire banking platform allows for simultaneous copies of the banking platform to exist on the company's servers. This provides greater flexibility and efficiency for developing new products and services, and the new virtualization technology will also improve redundancy measures and customer experience.[17]
In September 2012, the bank entered the superannuation market with Living Super, a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF).[18]
Uday Sareen replaced Vaughn Richtor as CEO in June 2016 after Richtor announced his plans to retire from business.[19]
In August 2017, the bank announced it was changing its brand name from ING DIRECT to simply ING.
In November 2020, Melanie Evans became CEO,[20] the first female and Australian to lead the Australian subsidiary of ING.[21] Prior to being appointed CEO, Melanie Evans led the Retail Banking unit having joined ING in March 2017.[22]
