ING Direct has changed its mortgage distribution strategy, concentrating on selling more loans through direct and broker channels and less through its white label business.ING Direct Australia's chief executive, Vaughn Richtor, said the change was driven by the bank's goal of having more customers who see ING Direct as their main financial institution.Richtor said: "In the past our challenge was to build a client base in Australia. Today the opportunity is to grow our primary client numbers."According to figures supplied by Roy Morgan Research, only 12.8 per cent of ING Direct's customers consider the bank to be their main financial institution (MFI). Of 21 banks surveyed, only Citibank, UBank and Macquarie Bank have a lower proportion of customers who consider themselves MFI customers.One effect of the change in strategy is that ING Direct's mortgage book has contracted from A$37.6 billion to $36.2 billion over the year to June. It has lost 22 basis points of market share over that period and has been overtaken by Suncorp Bank as Australia's fifth largest mortgage lender.Richtor said mortgage sales through direct and broker channels continued to grow but the white label channel had contracted. "We have reduced that channel, although we still have some strong partners in the white label market," he said.ING Direct is looking for mortgage managers who will support its goal of developing primary bank relationships (which means customers have more than one product) and not just sell mortgages.For the past couple of years, the bank's focus has been on deposits and transaction accounts. It has a fee-free transaction account, Orange Everyday (one of only six on the Australian Bankers' Association's "Affordable Banking" website) and it has recently upgraded its mobile banking application."We have had very good growth in savings and have not chased growth in the mortgage book," Richtor said."One of the big lessons of the GFC was that you have to work on both sides of the balance sheet."