Mark Buitenhek started his banking career as a trainee in 1988 when he joined NMB Bank in the Netherlands. After his first assignment in sales, he went to regional marketing and from there he became a branch manager at ING Bank.
In 1995 he became the manager of the electronic banking proposition for business clients of Postbank, the leading consumer bank in the Netherlands. After that he stepped into the payments and cards business for the first time as head of product management for ING Bank in the Netherlands. Finding himself in the middle of the ‘chipcard war’ between the Dutch banks, he quickly learned the do’s and dont’s in (chip)cards and terminals. He would never leave payments again.
In 1999 he switched from domestic payments to international payments as head of operations of the international payments for ING. In 2002 he returned to the business side of the bank as director product management of payments, savings and consumer loans for Postbank.
In 2004 he became the head of the two product management departments for payments and cards of Postbank and ING Bank. In 2007 Mark was appointed General Manager of Payments Retail Europe within ING Group. His newly created business unit drives convergence for payments, cards and cash services of ING Retail units in Europe. It leads the SEPA projects, deals with multi country suppliers and partners and develops new (payments related) business for ING retail customers.
