An International Bank and its Clients

An interview with Gerlach Jacobs, Head of Commercial Banking, ING Bank Turkey

What do you see as ING Bank’s primary responsibilities towards its clients?

Our primary concern is to offer a better client experience and to enable our clients stand one step ahead in their private and business lives.

We promise our clients to offer accurate information and the right options at the right time to help them evaluate their alternatives and take the best financial decisions today and in the future. Thinking forward at all times, we will keep on taking the steps that pave the way for progress.

ING Group’s experience in offering services to clients from various sectors in more than 40 countries offers an international network for our clients. Based on this experience we are offering solutions to our corporate and financial institution clients, who wish to expand their operations to the international arena or to invest abroad. We are also enabling them to handle relevant banking transactions under advantageous circumstances.

What are your current areas of growth?

We maintained our strong growth in 2014 in Corporate Banking. We financed the acquisition of United Biscuits by Yıldız Holding, which attracted worldwide attention. ING Turkey arranged separate cross-border lending facilities for a single leading Turkish manufacturer in Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria respectively, and became the leading international bank for this client.

Financial Institutions coverage was another area of strong growth in 2014. We are one of the most active international banks supporting Turkish banks in the syndicated loan market, and we are also establishing a strong franchise in debt capital markets as the bookrunner in various international Eurobond issuances by Turkish banks. ING Bank offers different long-term structured finance instruments not only to Turkish banks but also to their overseas subsidiaries and helps them to access global banking services, products and funding sources.

Tell us about the moves you have made in e-Invoicing and e-Archiving.

Taking advantage of the regulation that imposes the use of e-invoices for companies with a certain trade volume, we launched the INGeF e-Invoice system and became the first integrator bank in this field. We redesigned the e-Invoice service ING offers to its clients in several European countries, in compliance with local regulations and the needs of our clients, blending our experience with our know-how and strong technological infrastructure. With the alternative custom-made solutions we can offer, our clients can easily switch to the e-Invoice system, which enables them to issue, receive, send and archive their invoices electronically. Our INGEF Discount solution allows our clients to access fast and easy financing under favorable conditions in the return of their e-Invoice receivables.

We are also proud to be the first private integrator bank in the field of e-Archive Invoicing which we are now offering to our clients. With e-Archive, invoices that used to have to be issued, kept and submitted in a paper-based environment can now be issued, kept and submitted electronically. Through this service, taxpayers will be able to send e-Archive Invoices to their clients. So taxpayers will no longer be obliged to keep a physical archive of the copies of their invoices, and clients will be freed from the necessity of keeping physical invoices until the end of the warranty period.

What are your plans for the remainder of the year?

Throughout 2015 we will continue to grow along with our clients, taking a more balanced and client-oriented approach, focusing on increasing our levels of service. As a bank that offers high added value products we will continue to expand with the help of our experts in Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt and the other regions where we operate.

Within the framework of our growth strategy, the following points will be important:

• New transactions to be made due to strongly maintained relations with current clients;
• Positive impact of increased local expertise;
• Building on ING’s know-how and experience in Turkey, in its areas of global expertise (e.g., infrastructure investments, telecommunication, media and technology investments, energy investments and investments focusing on the utilisation of natural resources);
• Extension of our global product capabilities in Turkey (e.g., debt capital markets – Eurobond issuance; securitisation – diversified payment rights, covered bond/loan and structured export finance – Export Credit Agency guaranteed facilities);
• Effective use of ING brand awareness that is growing countrywide thanks to the various roles we assume in specific deals.