No fee ING account must pay its way

ING Direct (Australia) turns ten years old this month. In that time they have collected 1.25 million customers to their online savings account and about 200,000 mortgage customers. In time ING Direct wants to become a full service retail bank, albeit a branchless one.

The new transaction account, called "Orange Everyday", is the third part of that strategy. The account is now live, having been rolled out to ING staff who are said to be enjoying its key promotional offer to pay all foreign ATM fees.

Bankwest tried the same offer with their Zero account, but has recently moved to limit it because of the high cost of third party ATM charges.

ING Direct Executive Director of savings, Brett Morgan, says the free ATM access is not a promotional deal, but will remain a permanent feature of the Orange Everyday account.

"We absolutely believe that we will be able to run with this in the long term. We want to become Australian consumer's main bank, their favourite bank, so we offer them something great; they may bring their whole banking relationship to us."

Despite that hope, Morgan says the new account has to commercially 'stand on its own two feet'.

"In the old days it was about interest margins then banks built profitability on the fee bonanza. We want to take it back a few years, bring back that basic concept to Australian banking, and we think we have a model that can make it work."

Morgan says ING Direct is totally focused on the new account.

 "At this stage, we won't be bringing anything new to the market for the next year or two. The focus is on doing things well and meeting the customer needs.

"At this stage for us it's about moving into that [transaction account] space and that is going to be our focus for the next couple of years."