Customers’ growth drives ING’s earnings
Growth in customer numbers helped drive a 10 per cent increase in underlying earnings for 2016 for ING Australia.
However, at the same time, the company reported a statutory net profit after tax of $295 million which was a six per cent drop, counting year-on-year, on account of one-off loan portfolio and liquid asset sales in the previous period.
However, the company managed to increase the total number of customers by 163,000 new clients.
ING Australia’s chief executive, Uday Sareen, also stressed that the number of primary bank customers increased by 36 per cent, driven by a record take up of the Orange Everyday payment account.
“The Orange Everyday payment account grew 39 per cent, breaking through the 500,000 mark,” he said.
“More than half of our new customers came from the recommendations of existing customers. We are now Australia’s fifth largest retail bank in both household balances and mortgages.
Mr Sareen said the highlight of the loans growth was an increase of more than 12 per cent for owner occupier home loans, which comprised 77 per cent of ING’s retail mortgage portfolio.
He also said ING would continue to develop more products and services as part of the bank’s focused primary bank strategy.
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