Starting from empathy

Ask Corentin what drives him, and the answer is immediate: the person on the other side of the screen. As a customer journey expert in payments, he brings a natural instinct for user experience to everything he does, and that shapes how he approaches even the most technical challenges.

“I’m a people person. For me, this project is about making sure that when you’re using your phone, everything feels fluent and natural. Even the smallest adjustment is worth it if it removes a bit of friction from someone’s day.” Corentin says.

Adeline, who has worked at ING for 13 years and manages regulatory projects impacting payments, shares that sense of responsibility, and adds a reality check on the scale of what the team took on.

“After the regulation is published, the bank has eighteen months to make it happen. This is very short when you need to adapt complex IT systems to make payments happen in all channels, in less than ten seconds, 24/7, across Europe,” says Adeline.

At its peak, around 50 people were involved in Belgium alone, working in close collaboration with ING Group. For Begoña, who has spent 20 years in payments at ING  and represents the bank at Febelfin and the European Payments Council, the non-negotiable nature of the deadline was clear from the start.

“Regulatory projects are our priority number one,” adds Begoña. “There is simply no option to delay.”

Speed, security and something extra 

The team didn’t just implement the regulation. They looked for ways to make the experience better. Instant payments were rolled out alongside “verification of the name of the beneficiary”, a feature that warns customers if the beneficiary’s name doesn’t match the account number.

“The verification of the name of the beneficiary has already reduced invoice fraud by 50%,” Begoña explains. “That is a very tangible impact. It speaks for itself.”

Corentin took the same approach when it came to the payment flow itself. Working in a mobile-first environment, he and the team pushed to go beyond compliance, by making the experience intuitive, not just functional. One idea that emerged from that mindset was “Copy Pay”: a feature that automatically reads payment details from messages or PDFs, so customers no longer have to type them manually.

“The idea started during a Makeathon. In just three months, it evolved from concept to a feature used by customers in the app.” says Corentin.

What working together actually taught them

A project of this scale - regulatory, technical, customer-facing all at once - required constant alignment across legal, IT, communication, and commercial teams. For Adeline, that cross-functional dynamic is one of ING’s real strengths, and one of the things she values most about her work.

“You work with legal, IT, communication and commercial teams, and you may even represent ING externally. That diversity is very motivating.” says Adeline.

For Thierry, who joined ING as a Commercial in 2008 and worked his way to Squad master, the biggest challenge was getting alignment across a large organisation, and that lesson stayed with him. His first project in the squad was the “Repay” feature: a transfer button that lets customers reuse the details of a previous payment to make a new one. Small in scope, significant in impact. Usage has grown steadily, and the numbers back it up: adoption of the new payment interface jumped from 2.34% in January 2025 to over 8% a year later.

“It’s proof that when you build something designed for people, they embrace it,” Thierry adds.

Begoña has seen many projects across 20 years in payments at ING. For her, the lesson of this project was also personal: ING gives you the room to keep learning and evolving.

“You can change roles, learn continuously and take on new challenges,” Begoña says. “That is something truly unique about working at ING.”

Thierry’s own career is proof of that. Starting as a commercial, moving through operations, gaining experience at another bank, and returning to build a technical career in payments. ING made space for all of it. What motivates him now is what motivated him at the start: learning, and seeing the result of the work once a project is done.

“You are trusted to deliver,” Adeline concludes. “And when you reach a milestone like this, there is real pride in knowing you made it happen.”

Instant payments are not the end of the journey. With new regulations and innovative initiatives like the digital euro, instant payments in currencies on the horizon the payments landscape continues to evolve, and so does the team working on it.