General contribution to growth

Retail Banking, which covers all retail banking activities, posted an excellent performance that is up on last year and above the target set for the first half of the year, thanks to good revenue growth and ongoing cost control. Retail Banking now has over 100,000 customers.

The good performance posted by Private Banking early in the year was confirmed during the second quarter of 2015. Favourable market developments during this period, well-supported transaction activity, a consistent range of investment products and the success of the ING Aria Lion fund fostered our activity.

For the first six months of the year, Corporate & Institutional Banking posted another excellent result despite a low-interest rate environment which is squeezing margins.

This good performance is linked to growth across all assets (deposits, loans and securities) and a sharp increase in payment transactions (+30%). The number of new accounts continues to rise in a satisfactory manner (+4%).

Despite the uncertainty at political and economic level, the first half of the year was good for Financial Markets whose results were up on 2014, beating their targets.

ING Luxembourg strengthens its local connections!

• ‘Great Place to Work Luxembourg’ once again!

ING Luxembourg is very proud to announce that on 24 February 2015 it was confirmed as a ‘Great Place to Work’ following a survey conducted by the Great Place to Work Institute. ING was awarded the ‘Great Place to Work’ label in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, and was ranked fifth among 2015’s winners.

ING Luxembourg is particularly proud of this award - once again it was ranked first among companies with over 500 employees.

• Laying of the foundation stone for the future head office at the Quartier de la Gare

On 22 April 2015, the foundation stone for ING Luxembourg’s future head office on the former site of the Galerie Kons in the Quartier de la Gare was laid in the presence of Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg, and Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Construction of the new building should be completed by the end of 2016, allowing ING Luxembourg to bring all its teams together onto one site instead of the four it currently occupies.

• ING Night Marathon Luxembourg: ten years of success!

ING re-asserted the presence of its brand in the Grand Duchy by celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Marathon on 30 May in fitting style when another wave of orange flooded Luxembourg City, attracting almost 12,000 runners and over 100,000 spectators.

• By signing the first InnovFin guarantee agreement with the EIF, ING strengthens its support for Luxembourg’s SMEs

On 21 May 2015, the European Investment Fund (EIF) and ING Luxembourg signed an agreement to increase lending to innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to small mid-caps under the InnovFin framework, a European finance project for innovators that is supported by the European Commission. This agreement enables ING to provide loans to innovative companies in Luxembourg for a total of 50 million euros over the next two years, with the support of the EIF and Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. This first InnovFin guarantee agreement with Luxembourg’s SMEs allows ING to offer innovative companies additional financing at favourable conditions.

Luc Verbeken, CEO of ING Luxembourg, made the following comments on the H1 results: “In a turbulent economic context, we have achieved results that are better than those we achieved over the same period last year. At this stage, our performance is exceeding our targets and we aim to build on this momentum to ensure that our results for the year as a whole are equally positive. It is thanks mainly to the dynamism of our commercial activity, the unceasing efforts of all our staff and the renewed confidence of our customers that we have been able to deliver such a result!”