Amsterdam,
ING actively supporting customers, employees and society during Covid-19 pandemic
- With most staff still working from home, ING is actively supporting customers, employees and communities and continues to engage with governments and regulators to support recovery
- Our digital model enabled continued growth in primary customers by 156,000
ING 2Q2020 result before tax of €542 million
- Net interest income and fee income remained resilient; income furthermore supported by positive valuation adjustments. Continued good operational cost control
- CET1 ratio improved to 15.0%, refl ecting higher capital and a decline in RWA, including capital management actions and lower lending volumes. Four-quarter rolling ROE was 6.1%
- Result refl ects higher collective provisioning triggered by a worsened macro-economic outlook due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and higher individual Stage 3 provisions, as well as impairments on goodwil
CEO statement
“The Covid-19 pandemic continued in the second quarter to strongly impact the economies where we operate and how we conducted our own business,” said Steven van Rijswijk, CEO of ING Group. “Against this backdrop we saw continued strong net interest income. Fee income from brokerage services in our German retail operation was higher, and in Wholesale Banking income was up due to increased client demand for Financial Markets services. We maintained good operational cost control and primary customer relationships grew, demonstrating the strength of our digital business model, which enhances customer experience and supports a better cost infrastructure. This led to a resilient pre-provision result. The impact of Covid-19 was refl ected in the higher risk provisioning and goodwill impairments we booked in the second quarter. We remain strongly capitalised with a CET1 ratio of 15%.
“At the same time, we supported customers and employees in dealing with the disruption from the crisis, played a positive role in the communities where we’re active and further enhanced our digital and mobile-fi rst banking proposition. I’m very proud of the way our people and organisation are supporting our customers. I’m honoured to be ING’s new CEO and excited to lead this committed organisation.
“Our digitisation strategy is showing its worth. We continued to make banking easier and safer for customers and enabled our employees to work more eff ectively from home. In Poland, for example, customers requesting a bank card can immediately start using a digital card for mobile payments. In the Netherlands and Belgium, we’re successfully using new channels like video calls to advise customers as an alternative to face-to-face contact. Around three-quarters of ING’s employees worldwide continue to work from home. We support them with tools and guidance to create an optimal remote working environment.
"To provide customers everywhere with the same easy, smart and personal customer experience, we welcomed Belgian customers to the OneWeb banking environment shared with our Dutch customers, and we’re also introducing our award winning OneApp mobile environment used in the Netherlands and Germany. ING is the fi rst bank in Germany to off er loans to businesses who sell through Amazon’s seller portal. And SME clients can now also access the digital lending solution of fi ntech Lendico via our German banking platform.
“In the second quarter we continued our work to become even more eff ective gatekeepers of the fi nancial system. We set up a special Covid-19 taskforce to monitor transactions to protect customers from fraud. In our ongoing Know Your Customer (KYC) eff orts we continued to improve customer due diligence fi les and rolled out enhanced tools in various countries to improve pre transaction screening and transaction monitoring.
“We also assisted communities through the many actions of our local businesses, such as donations of materials and funds. And ING will help fund UNICEF’s eff orts to aid the world’s most vulnerable children and their caregivers. In keeping with our commitment to fi nance a low-carbon society, we grew our sustainable fi nance franchise in the second quarter. This included a US$1 billion green bond issued by ING to fund loans for renewable energy and green buildings. “I’m confi dent about ING’s strength and resilience in these challenging times, and I believe that our strategic direction is the right one to guide us in the future.”
Note for editors
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ING profile
ING is a global financial institution with a strong European base, offering banking services through its operating company ING Bank. The purpose of ING Bank is empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business. ING Bank's more than 54,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.
ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).
Sustainability forms an integral part of ING's strategy, evidenced by ING's ranking as Leader in the banks industry group by Sustainalytics and 'A' rating in MSCI's ratings universe. ING Group shares are included in major sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) index products of leading providers STOXX, Morningstar and FTSE Russell.
Elements of this press release contain or may contain information about ING Groep N.V. and/ or ING Bank N.V. within the meaning of Article 7(1) to (4) of EU Regulation No 596/2014.
ING Group's annual accounts are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union ('IFRSEU'). In preparing the financial information in this document, except as described otherwise, the same accounting principles are applied as in the 2018 ING Group consolidated annual accounts. The Financial statements for 2019 are in progress and may be subject to adjustments from subsequent events. All figures in this document are unaudited. Small differences are possible in the tables due to rounding.
Certain of the statements contained herein 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 a number of factors, including, 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) potential consequences of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union or a break-up of the euro, (4) changes in the fiscal position and the future economic performance of the US including potential consequences of a downgrade of the sovereign credit rating of the US government, (5) potential consequences of a European sovereign debt crisis, (6) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity such as interbank funding, (7) changes in conditions in the credit and capital markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (8) changes affecting interest rate levels, (9) inflation and deflation in our principal markets, (10) changes affecting currency exchange rates, (11) changes in investor and customer behaviour, (12) changes in general competitive factors, (13) changes in or discontinuation of 'benchmark' indices, (14) changes in laws and regulations and the interpretation and application thereof, (15) changes in compliance obligations including, but not limited to, those posed by the implementation of DAC6, (16) geopolitical risks, political instabilities and policies and actions of governmental and regulatory authorities, (17) changes in standards and interpretations under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the application thereof, (18) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, and other changes in accounting assumptions and methodologies including changes in valuation of issued securities and credit market exposure, (19) changes in ownership that could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital and built-in loss carry forwards, (20) changes in credit ratings, (21) the outcome of current and future legal and regulatory proceedings, (22) operational risks, such as system disruptions or failures, breaches of security, cyber-attacks, human error, changes in operational practices or inadequate controls including in respect of third parties with which we do business, (23) risks and challenges related to cybercrime including the effects of cyber-attacks and changes in legislation and regulation related to cybersecurity and data privacy, (24) the inability to protect our intellectual property and infringement claims by third parties, (25) the inability to retain key personnel, (26) business, operational, regulatory, reputation and other risks in connection with climate change, (27) ING's ability to achieve its strategy, including projected operational synergies and cost-saving programmes and (28) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in this annual report of ING Groep N.V. (including the Risk Factors contained therein) and ING's more recent disclosures, including press releases, which are available on www.ING.com. (29) This document may contain inactive textual addresses to internet websites operated by us and third parties. Reference to such websites is made for information purposes only, and information found at such websites is not incorporated by reference into this document. ING does not make any representation or warranty with respect to the accuracy or completeness of, or take any responsibility for, any information found at any websites operated by third parties. ING specifically disclaims any liability with respect to any information found at websites operated by third parties. ING cannot guarantee that websites operated by third parties remain available following the publication of this document, or that any information found at such websites will not change following the filing of this document. Many of those factors are beyond ING's control.
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