ING grooms PH as main BPO hub

MANILA, Philippines–Dutch financial giant ING is grooming the Philippines to be its premier business processing hub in Asia, unveiling a rapid expansion program that seeks to harness the country’s vast pool of young, educated and English-speaking workforce.

ING Global Services and Operations Inc. (ING GSO), a wholly owned ING subsidiary that handles in-house processing for the bank’s growing commercial banking business in Asia and Europe, has set up shop on a 35,000-square meter W office tower in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) with a capacity to employ 420 people. This is the group’s first wholly owned business processing unit in Asia, making the Philippines its “premier” shared services hub in the region.

The group has business processing outsourcing (BPO) operations in India handled by a third-party provider. Globally, ING has about 40 shared services hub.

ING GSO now employs 125 people in the Philippines and this is expected to double to 250 by 2015, according to Nigel Smith, president and CEO of ING GSO. The full capacity of 420 at the first hub was expected to be hit by 2016 or earlier, he added.

Smith added that ING GSO has obtained a number of commitments from various units globally to house the operations in BGC. Moving forward, he said the group would look at setting up similar hubs in other locations in the Philippines. Personally, he said he would like to see another ING GSO hub in Cebu.

Apart from its skilled human resource, Smith said the Philippines had ample infrastructure to support a group shared services hub. He said ING GSO would likely see exponential growth in the years ahead.–Doris C. Dumlao