Following the increasing demand from customers, online trading is now possible at ING Direct Italy. It’s customer-friendly, like all other banking products of ING Direct. More.

ING Direct Italy recently launched an online trading platform, allowing customers to trade stocks, government bonds and exchange traded funds.

“Trading-on-Line (TOL) completes our banking offering with the same simplicity, convenience and transparency we provide in all our products”, says Tiziano Colombo, product specialist at ING Direct Italy. “The trading process, tools and information sections are easy to understand and use, also for people who do not trade heavily.” No fees are charged for activation, custody, transfer or closing: customers pay only the cost of their buy and sell trades.

Italy is one of the biggest and most developed trading and investment markets in Europe. To become Italy’s most preferred consumer bank, it is essential to be in this market. “In recent years, customers increasingly demanded an online trading platform”, says Federico Ronchi, product manager Investments, “in addition to our current product offering of savings, mortgages and a limited number of investment funds.”

Since the launch of this new product, over 2,000 customers have signed up. ING Direct Italy has big plans for the future. “The online trading platform is now only connected to current accounts, but starting 2010, TOL will also be connected to savings accounts. We will then be able to tap into our entire customer base and customers can benefit from a good trading offer combined with a high interest-rate account”, Colombo said.

www.ingdirect.it (Italian only)

ING Direct is one of the six business lines of ING Group. ING Direct is the world’s leading direct bank. It sells a limited number of simple banking products at very low costs to retail customers in nine developed countries: Canada, Spain, Australia, France, the US, Italy, Germany, the UK and Austria.

ING Direct Italy was launched in April 2001. It has over 1.1 million clients. The company offers savings, mortgages, retail investment products and payment accounts.