ING completes sale of ING Direct UK
ING completes sale of ING Direct UK
ING completes sale of ING Direct UK
Amsterdam, 6 March 2013
ING announced today that it has completed the sale of ING Direct UK to Barclays.
As announced on 9 October 2012, the transaction is a result of ING’s continuous evaluation of its portfolio of businesses and is in line with ING’s strategic objectives of sharpening the focus of the bank and further strengthening its capital position.
As part of the transaction, ING has transferred GBP 11.6 billion (EUR 13.4 billion at current exchange rates) of ING Direct UK’s savings and deposits and GBP 5.5 billion (EUR 6.4 billion) of mortgages to Barclays. As previously announced, part of the UK investment portfolio has matured or has been liquidated to facilitate the transaction. The impact of these two transactions was booked in the third and the fourth quarter results of 2012.
The combined loss for the transfer of the business and the investment portfolio is approximately EUR 260 million, which is lower than the expected loss of EUR 320 million at announcement, as favourable market circumstances have resulted in a lower loss on the investment portfolio.
The transaction will lead to a capital release of approximately EUR 280 million in the first quarter of 2013 due to a reduction in Risk Weighted Assets. This is expected to result in a positive impact on ING Bank’s core Tier 1 ratio of 12 basis points based on ING Bank’s core Tier 1 ratio of 11.9% at 31 December 2012.
The ING Direct units in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are not affected by today’s announcement. ING continues to invest to evolve the ING Direct business model, increasing the product offering and extending distribution, while integrating the balance sheet with the rest of ING Bank. The ING Commercial Banking activities in the UK are also not affected by today’s announcement.
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ING PROFILE
ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin, offering banking, investments, life insurance and retirement services to meet the needs of a broad customer base. Going forward, we will concentrate on our position as an international retail, direct and commercial bank, while creating an optimal base for an independent future for our insurance and investment management operations.
IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION
Certain of the statements contained in this document are not historical facts, including, without limitation, certain statements made of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation: (1) changes in general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING's core markets, (2) changes in performance of financial markets, including developing markets, (3) consequences of a potential (partial) break-up of the euro, (4) the implementation of ING's restructuring plan to separate banking and insurance operations, (5) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity such as interbank funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (6) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (7) changes affecting mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (8) changes affecting persistency levels, (9) changes affecting interest rate levels, (10) changes affecting currency exchange rates, (11) changes in investor, customer and policyholder behaviour, (12) changes in general competitive factors, (13) changes in laws and regulations, (14) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, (15) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, (16) changes in ownership that could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital and built-in loss carry forwards, (17) changes in credit-ratings, (18) ING's ability to achieve projected operational synergies and (19) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the risk factors section contained in the most recent annual report of ING Groep N.V.
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