The Orange Code
Book

The Orange Code

How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause

Arkadi Kuhlmann and Bruce Philp
Wiley, 2008
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Background
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

To say that ING Direct is not a traditional bank is a gross understatement. Most banks offer a bewildering multitude of financial products accompanied by add-on fees. Not ING Direct. It focuses on one thing: saving money in simple, high-interest savings accounts. Traditional banks operate from formal offices with tellers behind bullet-resistant glass and managers seated in cubicles, but ING Direct conducts much of its banking business from sleek cafés that offer coffee and luxury brands of tea. In each of its branches in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, it offers customers light snacks, free computer stations, conversation-zone seating and kitschy ING Direct merchandise. In this book, two imaginative business geniuses, Arkadi Kuhlmann, ING Direct’s iconoclastic “CEO of Savings,” and Bruce Philp, co-founder of GWP Brand Engineering, the firm’s marketing agency, explain how they started this innovative “un-bank,” how it operates and what its guiding principles are. Perhaps no institution could be quite as rosy as this insider-written corporate bio suggests, but if you want to shake things up in your corner of the professional world, getAbstract suggests this idiosyncratic book about a bright, bold business.

Summary

“You Want to Open What Kind of Bank?”

In July 1996, GWP Brand Engineering, a boutique advertising agency in Toronto, received an invitation to present creative marketing ideas for promoting a “new direct banking venture.” The request came from Netherlands financial giant ING (Internationale Nederlanden Groep), which planned to start a financial institution in Canada. Bruce Philp, GWP’s co-founder, knew that ING faced a rough task. Entrenched Canadian banks would muster enormous financial resources to thwart a new competitor. Canadians would not look kindly on the incursion of a Dutch start-up. And of course, consumers in Canada, as everywhere else, tend to detest banks in general, regarding them as unfeeling, heartless oligopolies.

Why, then, might Canadian consumers welcome a new Dutch bank? Perhaps they would extend a warm welcome once they learned that ING planned a start-up that was quite different from the standard “Soviet-esque bank branches.” In fact, ING did not want its new bank to resemble a conventional one in any way. Like public utilities, standard banks are pretty homogenous. They provide similar, unremarkable and, thus, commoditized services. Further...

About the Authors

Arkadi Kuhlmann is the founding CEO of ING Direct USA. He is a former professor of international finance and investment banking. Bruce Philp is the founding chairman of GWP Brand Engineering. He is an expert on corporate branding.

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