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The nature of the low- to intermediate-luminosity (LX ∼ 1032–34 erg s−1) source population revealed in hard band (2–10 keV) X-ray surveys of the Galactic plane is poorly understood. To overcome such problem, we cross-correlated the XMM–Newton 3XMM-DR4 survey with the infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey and Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire catalogues. We identified reliable X-ray–infrared associations for 690 sources. We selected 173 sources having hard X-ray spectra, typical of hard X-ray high-mass stars (kT > 5 keV), and 517 sources having soft X-ray spectra, typical of active coronae. About 18 per cent of the soft sources are classified in the literature: ∼91 per cent as stars, with a minor fraction of Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars. Roughly 15 per cent of the hard sources are classified in the literature: ∼68 per cent as high-mass X-ray stars single or in binary systems (WR, Be and high-mass X-ray binaries – HMXBs), with a small fraction of G and B stars. We carried out infrared spectroscopic pilot observations at the William Herschel Telescope for five hard X-ray sources. Three of them are high-mass stars with spectral types WN7-8h, Ofpe/WN9 and Be, and LX ∼ 1032–1033erg s−1. One source is a colliding-wind binary, while another source is a colliding-wind binary or a supergiant fast X-ray transient in quiescence. The Be star is a likely γ-Cas system. The nature of the other two X-ray sources is uncertain. The distribution of hard X-ray sources in the parameter space made of X-ray hardness ratio, infrared colours and X-ray-to-infrared flux ratio suggests that many of the unidentified sources are new γ-Cas analogues, WRs and low LX HMXBs. However, the nature of the X-ray population with Ks ≥ 11 and average X-ray-to-infrared flux ratio remains unconstrained., We acknowledge financial support from the ARCHES project (7th Framework of the European Union, no. 313146). FJC acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under project AYA2012-31447.