ING grows its full-year profits, as bank gets going with restructuring plan
ING announced this morning its full-year profits for 2016 have climbed, shortly after the bank revealed it was undergoing a massive restructuring which would shed thousands of jobs.
The figures
The Dutch bank boosted its net profits for the year to €4.7bn (£4.1bn), up 16 per cent compared with €4bn the year before.
Meanwhile, underlying net profits for the fourth quarter were €750m, down 8.4 per cent compared with the prior year's €819m, thanks partly to €787m of one-off restructuring and impairment costs being booked through the most recent period.
ING also announced its fully-loaded Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio was boosted to 14.2 per cent at the end of last year, compared with 12.7 per cent at the end of 2015.
ING also announced a full year dividend of €0.66.
Shares in the bank are currently trading up 1.3 per cent at €13.66.
Why it's important
Times are changing in banking, with consumers becoming increasingly less likely to drop into a branch than they are to log into an app. With that at least partly in mind, ING announced last October it was launching a massive restructuring, which would cull 7,000 jobs.
That being said, the bank announced today customer numbers were still strong, with over 1.4m new retail customers joining the lender during the financial year, bringing its global customer base to 35.8m.
What ING said
Ralph Hamers, chief executive of ING Group, said:
In the past year, ING took important steps to start a path of convergence towards one digital banking platform, which will enable us to keep getting better in the face of changing customer behaviour and industry dynamics. I am convinced that the acceleration of our Think Forward strategy will allow us to build on our position of strength for the benefit of our customers.
In short
The bank seems ready to get shipshape for the digital era