Business Banking traineeship

Especially at the beginning of your career, we believe it is important to explore diverse and international roles to unlock your full potential. What do you like and what gives you energy? What are you good at? And in which areas do you still need to develop?

The Business Banking track within the ING traineeship is a great place to kick-start your career, if you’re a talented and ambitious graduate. It provides you with a strong foundation for a successful career in banking. Because we’re working with a broad range of customers, from entrepreneurs and small businesses (e.g. independent professionals like doctors or lawyers, shop owners or small family business) to mid-sized companies (e.g. domestic retailers, industrial manufacturers or larger tech players).

That means you do not only get end-to-end experience with different types of customers, but the opportunity to internalize the entrepreneurial spirit and gain high levels of exposure to senior management: working on various strategic projects across product/ process management, sales or marketing. In other words, a dynamic and fun place to prepare yourself for a pivotal role within the bank!

Business Banking is ING’s third segment between Retail Banking and Wholesale Banking. We serve three types of customers: Self-employed & Micro companies SMEs and Mid-corporates.

Today, Business Banking serves around 2 million customers and generates approximately €3 billion in revenue across eight markets: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Germany and Australia.

Want to know more about what we do? Have a look at this video

The ING International Traineeship Program consists of three rotations of 6 months each. Two of these rotations are foreseen in your home country, while the third one can be abroad in one of our other Business Banking countries.

Your personal Talent Manager, from HR, will help you to decide on your first rotation, where you will set to work on a concrete challenge within the Business Banking domain. This will help you to arrange your second and third rotation.

Of course, there is some “freedom in the framework” - for us it is most important to find rotations that you like and that help you to further develop. During your traineeship you can take up roles such as all-round Business Banker, Product specialist (e.g. Lending, Daily Banking, M&A, Acquisition Finance, Real Estate Finance, Trade Finance, Sustainable Finance) or Customer Journey Expert (where you e.g. design products and services for our clients).

One of your rotations can even be done in a different track, to give you the opportunity to experience other roles (e.g. in Risk, Tech, Operations, HR, Finance or the other two business segments Retail and Wholesale Banking) and make an impact on our clients, products or processes from a different angle. There are many possibilities.

After your three rotations, it is time for your first permanent job. Of course, this will depend on your interests, skills and experience and you will get all the support you need for this decision.

Your learning journey however does not end here – you will continue to grow and develop yourself. You will enhance your knowledge and skills. With the right support, this will be on the job: for example in the role of a Customer Journey Expert. Furthermore you could start as Product Owner, Change Expert, Associate or Lending Specialist. But there’s still plenty of time to figure this out.

The point of being a trainee is to learn a lot, and we offer you every opportunity to do so.

All ING trainees participate in our global learning events. You learn about every aspect of core banking: the bank balance sheet, bank funding, IT processes and risk management. Needless to say, these events also help you to develop your soft skills such as business partnering, stakeholder management and presentation techniques. Furthermore, we offer a broad spectrum of training opportunities that are aligned with your specific development needs. These include training sessions to support your personal growth and development of particular competencies as well as courses to help you develop as a business and banking professional. You decide which kind of training you need, in consultation with your manager.

The Business Banking track of the traineeship focuses on developing your management and leadership skills. In addition, you will get the opportunity to achieve a range of certificates, such as CFA, Scrum or Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

As a trainee at ING, you can make a real difference. We encourage you to take the initiative and know that you will be eager to learn and to take an entrepreneurial approach. Open and constructive collaboration is of course vital to achieve optimal outcomes. We want you to develop and share your own vision.

To be successful, you will therefore need to have the ability to communicate effectively and use a flexible set of influencing skills. You will be delivering on multiple projects and topics simultaneously, sometimes with cross-functional or cross-cultural teams – hence, good to be well structured.