About

ING Bank Romania, the Romanian division of the Dutch international multinational financial company, has been operating since 1994 and was the first foreign bank to open a full branch in the country after its capitalisation. The legal and corporate affairs function continues to be run by Ioana Regenbogen, an award winning figure in the Romanian in-house legal industry as well as a frequent speaker at regional conferences and an inclusion in 2017’s GC Powerlist: Central and Eastern Europe. Her expert legal team specialises in retail, mid corporate banking, wholesale banking, financial markets, factoring, insurance brokerage and other aspects of ING’s business in Romania. The team is comprised of 23 lawyers equipped with specialist legal knowledge and operational expertise, and relies on the division of responsibilities across teams led by outstanding and long-serving legal managers. A general theme of change and transition has been at the heart of the team’s service in the recent past; with a trial and error approach taken to ensure the most effective processes were undertaken in aligning with the Bank’s business objectives. This has allowed the team to develop new skills and competencies including those related to technological advancements within the financial legal sector, such as the understanding of data analytics and coding. With active contributions on a number of business projects and transactions under its belt in the recent past, the team has been instrumental in the success of initiatives that were defined at group level, including the global standardisation of documentation, the implementation of a digital banking platform for wholesale banking customers – Inside Business, as well as a number of projects keeping the Bank in line with its regulatory requirements. In the last year, ING in Romania has launched for its individual clients a virtual card – ING Pay – and a 100% digital loan with qualified electronic signature; for certain type of businesses ING has launched an instant credit line and a digital platform offering omnichannel experience (transactions, self-service and direct and personalised channel) – ING Business, all of which the team has assisted on. Currently the team is assisting the business in creating a 100% digital experience for the persons who want to become the banks’ clients – E2E online onboarding. Four team members in particular are praised for their contribution to the realisation of the department’s new direction: Oana Fratila, litigation and general affairs manager, Claudia Dragomir, legal corporate products manager, Roxana Nistor, business support consumer products manager and Nicolae Iulia, an expert legal consultant within the corporate products area. The aforementioned have been central to a range of achievements including helping build awareness and preparing colleagues for upcoming challenges, changing the profile of lawyers to mould themselves into “lawyers of the future”, aligning more closely with the business as well as measures to increase the overall efficiency of the department, allowing it to take on more innovative and complex projects and tasks.