Inside ING's Singapore Innovation Lab

Paul Spronk, Head of ING Labs Singapore, explains how the bank works with startups to innovate.

ING Wholesale Banking has innovation labs in Amsterdam, London and Singapore. Paul Spronk heads ING Labs Singapore, having held this position since 2018. Prior to this, Spronk worked for fintech payments company Payconiq, which originated in ING’s Chief Innovation Office in Amsterdam - he later joined ING’s Wholesale Bank and helped to set up its global innovation team.

Today, from the city-state of Singapore, Spronk leads his team to drive innovation in the global trade ecosystem. His focus on different value spaces derives from where the bank traditionally has a strong footprint.

For example, ING Labs Singapore is ideally located in a technologically advanced trading hub of Singapore, hence it is focused on the trade value space, covering the entire ecosystem of goods that are traded globally and the adjacent network of services and financial flows. This sector expertise and leverage on innovation enables ING to play a role in improving industry efficiency and addressing structural challenges.

According to Spronk, the team has a three-pillar strategy and works on:

• Greenfield ventures that create long-term impact for ING and its clients. These ventures and initiatives can go beyond banking business models in addressing client needs as the global trade ecosystem evolves.

• Venture partnerships with a clear client-driven platform strategy in mind. ING invests in partnerships with startup, scale-up and corporate partners, with the aim of developing multi-sided business ties and models with open architecture and governance structures that enable the bank to create value-added products and services clients.

• The roll-out of PACE, INGs innovation methodology that combines a lean startup, and Agile way of working with design thinking. It offers tools that enable the bank to develop relevant solutions to internal and external problems.

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Did you know? It has been announced that Ralph Hamers is moving on as CEO of ING in order to become the CEO role at UBS.

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