Dutch bank ING is removing laborious manual processing for mortgage applications through an increased use of its latest artificial intelligence (AI) agent.
The bank is extending its use after successfully piloting AI for mortgages, saying it will now be able to make faster mortgage decisions through AI taking over the gathering and checking of documents and moving cases between different systems.
The AI agent looks over applications to understand them, explain possible outcomes and ways to move forward, and then a human employee will make final assessments and decisions. The AI agent for mortgage processing was piloted in March this year and the bank is now prepared to roll it out to the live environment.
Around 12 months ago, Marnix van Stiphout, ING chief operating officer (COO), told Computer Weekly about work being done around the use of AI in mortgage generation.
“We will look at agentic AI for products like mortgages, redoing the way we work with clients on getting mortgages from us,” he said at the time. “They will no longer need to speak to a person but a digital agent in terms of getting all the data from them and doing credit checks.”
ING said: “Buying a home is one of the most important financial decisions people make, and waiting for a mortgage decision can be one of the most uncertain moments along the way. Much of that waiting happens behind the scenes – gathering and checking documents, and moving cases between systems and experts.”
Tom Degen, head of mortgages at ING Netherlands, said the AI agent’s use will enable people to “focus on complex applications and personal contact with brokers…with the agentic mortgage assistant, we are taking the next step in supporting mortgage applications to deliver faster decisions and clearer outcomes for customers and brokers.”
The AI agent for mortgages is a sign of things to come at the bank, with ING saying it is “testing ideas in real settings and scaling what adds value for customers”.
Speaking to Computer Weekly last year, Stiphout said he expect certain work in operations to be done by 25% fewer people when AI is implemented, but said the 25% can be used for growth and more complex tasks.
In an interview with Computer Weekly last year, ING CTO Daniele Tonella said the bank is enabling development around AI in five areas: know your customer (KYC), call centres, in wholesale banking to improve customer due diligence, in retail for the hyper-personalisation of offerings, and inside tech for engineering.
A recent survey by Zopa and Juniper Research found that generative AI (GenAI) will save 187 million labour hours, mainly in back-office roles, and that 27,000 jobs could be displaced by 2030.
For example, Commerzbank recently announced it will cut 3,000 jobs – around 8% of its workforce – as it increases AI investment, set at €600m over the next four years. The bank expects €500m in additional value to be added each year through the AI investments from 2030 onwards.
Banks are gaining huge benefits from AI today, with Lloyds Banking Group’s Financial institutions sentiment survey for 2025 finding that 59% of surveyed firms reported AI-driven productivity gains in the past 12 months, compared with 32% in the 2024 survey.
