ING: Disruption in online banking at Germany's largest direct bank

Frankfurt. Technical problems have paralyzed the online banking of Germany's largest direct bank ING since the early hours of the morning on Tuesday.

“There are currently problems logging into internet banking and the banking app due to a technical malfunction,” an ING spokesman told Handelsblatt.

“There are also restrictions on telephone accessibility,” he added.

“Our teams are working hard to resolve the disruption.” ING also published a corresponding statement on its website.

Anyone who tries to log into their ING account via the app will receive the message: "Unfortunately, an error has occurred. It's best to try again later." Apparently the disruption is due to problems at ING or one of its service providers and not to a hacker attack.

“There is no evidence of an external cause,” said the ING spokesman.

With around ten million customers, ING is the largest direct bank in Germany.

Other financial institutions have also experienced repeated disruptions in online banking in recent months and years.

In the vast majority of cases, this is due to internal technical problems and not external attacks.

Nevertheless, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the German financial regulator Bafin have been warning about the growing risks of cyber attacks for years.

“The attackers are becoming more and more professional,” said Raimund Röseler, then Bafin’s top bank supervisor, as early as 2024.

“Anyone who thinks they have all risks under control is almost certainly wrong.”

Bafin receives daily reports of cyber attacks on banks, said Röseler.

At some point there will be a large-scale, successful attack.

“Then it will depend on how well the affected company is prepared for it.”

Röseler's horror scenario is a cyber attack that hackers use to empty all accounts of a large German bank.

The likelihood of this happening is “terribly low,” said the Bafin Executive Director in 2024.

“But if that happens, the damage will be extremely high.”

In July 2026, the ECB also warned of increasing cyber risks from attacks using artificial intelligence (AI).

“Novel AI models can detect software vulnerabilities and exploit them at an unprecedented speed,” wrote Claudia Buch, head of the ECB banking supervision, in a letter to the CEOs of Europe’s largest financial institutions.

Financial institutions must therefore increase the resilience of their information and communications technology (ICT) systems and eliminate vulnerabilities more quickly, warned Buch in the letter.

The CEOs are calling on them to develop an action plan to strengthen their IT security and to submit it to the ECB supervisory teams responsible for them by October 31st.

Buch also warned the CEOs to immediately correct deficiencies that the ECB found at the institutions during on-site inspections and in a cyber stress test in 2024.

“In view of the increased threat situation, vulnerabilities that have not yet been remedied represent a significant risk to operational resilience,” emphasized Buch.