ING will take the results of the Eerlijke Bankwijzer survey into consideration in its sustainability policy where possible

Today, 7 November, the media drew attention to a survey on Transparency and Accountability by the Fair Bank Guide (Eerlijke Bankwijzer – an initiative of Amnesty NL, Oxfam Novib, the FNV trade union body and the Dierenbescherming animal rights organisation). The Fair Bank Guide sets out the policy of Dutch banks as its backers would like to see it.

The survey’s conclusion suggests that the four largest banks in the Netherlands, including ING, are still insufficiently transparent about their investments. According to the survey, customers of ABN Amro, ING, Rabobank and SNS have no idea what their savings are being used for and these banks continue to be unforthcoming about their subsidiaries and other matters.

ING believes transparency is important and so we will take the report from the Fair Bank Guide into consideration in the further development of our policy. As we will, for example, the Transparency Benchmark Survey of the top 500 Dutch companies carried out for the Ministry of Economic Affairs. ING is in the top 20 in the Transparency Benchmark (the exact rankings will be announced on 21 November). Different survey methods deliver their own results.

With respect to the survey’s conclusion, we, like all other large Dutch banks, do not believe it is appropriate to our relationships model to publish the names of the companies we invest in or finance, partly because of customer confidentiality and our duty of care and partly because it would be an extremely long list that would be very time-consuming to compile given the number of customers that we serve worldwide. With respect to our subsidiaries, ING publishes a list of its business units and participating interests where it has a 20% or larger holding. This list is public and can be inspected by anyone at the Chamber of Commerce.

At the same time, we are very conscious of the rising level of expectations on responsible financing held by our customers and the public at large. To accommodate these, we try to be as transparent as possible about the sources of funds entrusted to us and their ultimate use. Trends in the key themes for sustainability change, as does society’s view of them. We work continuously to develop and improve our policy. That policy is published and can be inspected by anyone at:


http://www.ingforsomethingbetter.com/our-approach/business
http://www.ing.nl/verantwoordondernemen