Changes Executive Board ING Group

Amsterdam, 15 February 2007

Cees Maas, Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer will retire from the ING Group Executive Board as of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on 24 April 2007

The Supervisory Board of ING Group intends to propose to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to appoint John Hele and Koos Timmermans as members of the Executive Board of ING Group.

Cees Maas (1947, Dutch), Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of ING Group, will retire as of 24 April 2007 (AGM) having reached the age of 60. Cees Maas joined ING Group as a member of the Executive Board in 1992. He was appointed Chief Financial Officer in July 1996 and in April 2004 he became vice-chairman of the Executive Board. The Supervisory Board of ING Group is honoured to announce that Cees Maas will continue to serve ING as an advisor to the Executive Board and awarded him with the title of honourary Vice-Chairman of ING Group.

Given the increasing complexity and importance of both the finance and risk roles within ING, the Supervisory Board has decided to split the roles of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer into two positions on the Executive Board.

The Supervisory Board intends to propose the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of 24 April 2007 to appoint John Hele (1958, Canadian) as Chief Financial Officer and member of the ING Group Executive Board. John Hele is currently deputy Chief Financial Officer reporting to Cees Maas. Prior to assuming this role in 2006, he was General Manager and Chief Insurance Risk Officer as well as the Group Actuary. He spent most of his career at Merrill Lynch in New York, taking up positions as an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group and as a marketing executive in the retail division.

The Supervisory Board intends to propose the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of 24 April 2007 to appoint Koos Timmermans (1960, Dutch) as Chief Risk Officer and member of the ING Group Executive Board. Koos Timmermans is currently deputy Chief Risk Officer reporting to Cees Maas. Before this appointment he was General Manager Corporate Market Risk Management, where he was responsible for trading risk, asset & liability management and market risk in retail portfolios. He was also responsible for Operational Risk Management. Koos Timmermans has worked at ING since 1996. Before joining ING he held positions at IBM’s European treasury in Ireland and at ABN Amro.

Cor Herkströter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ING Group, said: “On behalf of the Supervisory Board I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the dedicated and outstanding contribution Cees Maas made to ING Group. With his deep understanding of the financial industry Cees Maas has been an inspiring leader and a driving force behind the strong performance of ING over the last fifteen years”.

Michel Tilmant, Chairman of the Executive Board of ING Group, said: “It was an honour for me to work in the Executive Board with such a highly professional colleague like Cees Maas. His broad experience in the world of business and finance helped steer ING through many challenges in the past decade. I would like to thank Cees for using his expertise to strengthen ING’s position as a world-class financial institution. I am pleased to announce that the new Executive Board members, John Hele and Koos Timmermans, both come with strong experience and proven track records within ING. I am confident that they will successfully maintain the high standards that Cees established during his tenure.”

Press enquiries: ING Group
Peter Jong, +31 20 541 5457, peter.jong@ing.com

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in over 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of about 120.000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.