Consistency seems to be Dick Harryvan’s favourite word. The ING board member responsible for ING Direct believes that sticking to a simple recipe has allowed the Dutch banking and insurance group to build the world’s biggest direct bank almost unnoticed.

Launched just over 10 years ago in Canada, ING Direct has grown to 20m customers in nine countries with deposits of €210bn ($309.4bn) and mortgages of close to €90bn. Everywhere except Germany that growth has been organic, and in many markets the ING brand was all but unknown previously.