ING is looking to make more use of its customer data for behavioural targeting. The financial services company has seen a five-fold in customer contacts in the past few years (think of Internet banking). They also have a lot of information on each customer through they payment transactions they do. If the customer would allow ING to use this information the bank could analyst the energy, phone and other bill and deliver specific offers together with other companies.

The ING PR department rushed to tone-down the debate by saying that this is only a possible scenario. A flood of data privacy concerns would be connected to initiatives like these.

The ING idea is thought provoking. How much does you bank know about your and the companies you do business with? How would they be able to use this and could it be of benefit to you?