WILMINGTON, Del. - The online bank ING Direct will open an Internet cafe in Los Angeles in April, in its first such foray outside the Northeast.
"Our big push for 2003 is Southern California," chief executive Arkadi Kuhlmann said in an interview Friday. The bank already has a call center and a mortgage lending operation in the area, he said.
ING Direct has offices in Wilmington, an operations center in St. Cloud, Minn., and banking "Internet cafes" in New York and Philadelphia.
Ewald Kist, the chief executive of the bank's parent company, ING Group NV of the Netherlands, said in a New Year's letter to employees that the Web bank, which operates in seven countries, turned profitable in the fourth quarter. For the full year, though, it was unprofitable, a spokesman told the Reuters news agency.
U.S. operations, established in September 2000, turned profitable in the second quarter of 2002, according to statements filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Nine-month net income was $21.5 million, after a $32.5 million loss in the year-earlier period. Assets of $10.2 billion on Sept. 30 were up 264% from a year earlier.
Mr. Kuhlmann said he expected the U.S. operations to post a profit of $40 million to $50 million for 2002 on assets of just under $12 billion.
