ING COMBINES ITS DUTCH INSURERS

Netherlands-based financial services group ING has announced the combination of its Nationale-Nederlanden, RVS and ING Verzekeren Retail insurance operations as part of an ambitious cost-cutting plan that aims to generate €100m ($140.5m) in annual cost savings by 2013. A migration to the Nationale-Nederlanden brand will begin in 2011. The new company will cover the Retail, Small & Medium Enterprise and Corporate sectors through “dedicated business units”. ING said that the move would cost 800 jobs, most of which will go through attrition. ING expects the restructuring to make a positive profit contribution from 2010 on. CEO Jan Hommen said that the move was “a next important step” in ING’s “Back to Basics” strategy. He claimed that “by streamlining the company and creating dedicated business units for customer groups, we will be able to better serve our over five million insurance customers in the Netherlands with the products they want”. Another business unit will be created to serve clients in closed books. ING said that it had set “ambitious targets to drive costs below the market benchmark level”. Over the next four years it will invest a total of €165m “to realize the transformation process”.