Oakton Develops ING Direct’s New Mobile Banking App

Leading Australian consulting and technology firm, Oakton [ASX:OKN] has developed a new mobile banking app for ING Direct’s customers, which has gone live this week. The app was designed to meet the needs of the bank’s customers who are increasingly accessing their accounts via a mobile device and in 2012 ING Direct experienced a 280% increase in mobile interactions.

As a branchless bank, ING Direct’s customers rely heavily on accessing their accounts via mobile or web. After recognising it needed to modernise its mobile banking app, ING Direct was faced with the challenge of delivering a market leading mobile banking experience in a secure and responsive way, whilst ensuring its customers have visibility and control over their personal finances.

“The consistent trend in web visits has been around 15 per cent  year on year, but this spike in mobile interactions is significant and proof of the ever-growing consumer demand and comfort to be able to ‘do’ while on the go,” said Executive Director Distribution at ING DIRECT, Lisa Claes.

Oakton delivered the new ING Direct mobile banking app in partnership with Deloitte Digital and ING, utilising a services layer that is aligned to performance requirements by ING Direct. It adheres to the tight security protocols required by ING, with improvements to its architecture and also features a flexible platform that enables future developments of the bank’s digital channels.

The goals of the project were to improve usability, security and performance through a rebuild of the native mobile online banking application and the backend services that support them. ING identified that there was a need to implement a services architecture in order to deliver a more robust and responsive mobile banking solution and this is where Oakton’s skills with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 were utilised. 

“All ING Direct objectives were achieved by Oakton's “Solution as a Service” model, a model which allows Oakton to deliver an improved customer experience at a reduced cost aligned to business and consumer needs,” said Neil Wilson, CEO, Oakton.

The easy to use and intuitive ING Direct app is available for iPhone or iPad via the Apple Store For iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ing-direct-australia-banking/id427100193?mt=8&uo=4

For Android smartphones and tablets via Google Play: http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.ingdirect.android .

The ING Direct app allows customers to view their account balance across all their products before logging in and to transfer money to anyone in Australia with email or SMS notification.

“Customers were invited to test the app throughout the design and development phase as we saw the customer experience as the most critical piece to the success of the new app.  We were particular about choosing the features that mattered most to customers and designing them in a very easy, intuitive way,” concluded Claes.

The uniqueness of the solution implemented by Oakton is in the security and authentication model that was developed. Oakton choose a cutting edge approach using Microsoft Windows Identity Framework for authentication with claims based architecture allowing for the establishment of trust for other services.

“The benefits of the new architecture were not only increased performance, but also delivered cost effectiveness for ongoing maintenance through the use of a centralised authentication model. With our extensive expertise in security, the new ING Direct solution represents a new way of thinking about architectures,” said Neil Wilson.

Video outlining features: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UXTIhBQx-L4&noredirect=1 

ENDS

About Oakton

Oakton is one of Australia’s leading technology and business consulting services companies and is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange [ASX: OKN]. Oakton helps some of Australia’s largest organisations across a range of industry sectors meet their technology and business needs through its flexible, cost-effective and results-driven approach to service delivery.  With over 1,100 employees, Oakton has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Hyderabad (India). To learn more about Oakton please visit www.oakton.com.au. 

About ING DIRECT

ING DIRECT pioneered branchless banking in Australia by offering the first online, high interest, fee free savings account. Our low cost operating model allows us to pass these savings on to the customer in the form of great value products and services. Today, ING DIRECT has more than 1.4 million customers with $29 billion in deposits and $38 billion in mortgages and a range of products including transaction accounts and superannuation. Please note ING DIRECT is never abbreviated to ING.