The ING Group has announced the forthcoming launch of a new technology hub in Spain, which will be the Dutch company's sixth in the world after those in the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey. Located in Madrid, it will start operating next September with a progressive implementation.

The choice of Spain for the new innovation centre responds to ING's strategic commitment to the country, which will contribute to boosting investment. It will also generate employment and foster local technological talent. The company's objective is to gradually incorporate professionals from the technology industry until it reaches 1,000 employees in four years' time.

Scalability of technology services
ING's purpose in opening this technology hub is to accelerate the bank's development with the aim of becoming the best in Europe. At the same time, it will seek to strengthen its global capacity and improve the scalability of its technology services.

Employees at the Madrid-based technology centre will work on faster, more scalable technologies with a shorter time-to-market (the time it takes for an innovation to reach consumers). The aim is to optimise the customer experience.

Talent potential and diversity
According to a statement, ING has chosen Madrid as the location for the sixth hub in its global network “because of its talent potential, its diversity, a regulatory framework that favours investment and a greater availability of office space”. Thanks to these factors, the Spanish capital is a strategic location for ING in terms of setting up this centre, which it describes as a “long-term project, framed within ING's global vision to boost its technological growth”.

The new ING employees will be employed in areas like software engineering, systems architecture and data analysis. With this progressive generation of employment,  the company wants to promote employment generation over the four years while also adapting to the current context and with the aim of creating global ecosystems that are capable of meeting local needs.

The 1,000 employees at the Spanish hub will join a global network that already employs over 12,500 experts, and who are consolidating this innovation model as a fundamental pillar for the bank's digital transformation.

^{Photo: ING}