BELGIAN BANK PLANS TO DOUBLE ITS SHARE OF INSURANCE MARKET

Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL), a unit of Dutch financial group ING, plans to double its share of the Belgian insurance market within five years. BBL currently has a market share of about 5.7% in Belgium, according to chairman Luc Vandewalle. He added that the group might change some of its corporate branding, in order to stress to retail customers that BBL is backed by a leading financial company. BBL posted a 32% year-on-year rise in first-half net profit to 304m euros.