6th February 2020
A growing number of customers choose ING as their primary bank
- Primary customer base rises by more than 830,000 in FY2019 to 13.3 million; total retail customer base reaches 38.8 million
- Net core lending grows by €17.2 billion in 2019, €2.0 billion in 4Q2019; net infl ow customer deposits €23.4 billion in 2019, €2.5 billion in 4Q2019
- Four-quarter rolling net interest margin holding up on continued pricing discipline and tiering
ING full-year 2019 underlying pre-tax result 9.2% lower than last year; 4Q2019 underlying pre-tax result of €1,337 million
- Reflects well-diversified loan book with resilient margins, despite margin pressure on customer deposits; higher fee income
- Expenses increase mainly due to KYC; risk costs higher, but on full-year basis below ING’s through-the-cycle average
- Full-year underlying ROE is 9.4%, CET1 ratio remains robust at 14.6%; full-year 2019 dividend of €0.69 per share
CEO statement
“Looking back at 2019, we see a year of solid commercial performance despite the challenging rate environment, geopolitical uncertainties and an increasingly complex and demanding regulatory environment. The fourth quarter of 2019 proved challenging,” said Ralph Hamers, CEO of ING Group. “I’m proud of our commercial performance as pricing discipline and growth helped counter the pressure of negative interest rates. We recorded a 4.5% rise in underlying expenses for 2019, which includes a marked increase in regulatory costs, as well as costs related to our KYC enhancement programme. There was also an increase in risk costs, but the quality of our loan book improved with the Stage-3 ratio declining to 1.4%. Our full-year underlying pre-tax result declined 9.2% despite continued business growth at resilient interest margins. ING’s full-year underlying return on equity was 9.4%, while the CET1 ratio remained strong at 14.6%, having already taken in the fourth quarter €13.2 billion as part of the expected supervisory impact on risk-weighted assets. We propose a full-year 2019 cash dividend of €0.69 per share, of which an interim dividend of €0.24 was paid in August 2019.
“I believe a key way of measuring success is through the experience of our customers. I’m pleased that they continued to turn to us in 2019 for their fi nancial needs, as evidenced by the growth in the total number of customers to 38.8 million. Customers also chose to deepen their banking relationship with us, as the number of primary customers increased 6.7% to 13.3 million in 2019, with more than 200,000 added in the fourth quarter. Our customers continue to adopt new ways to pay, with the number of mobile card transactions increasing six-fold in 2019 from 2018, boosted by the integration of third-party services like Apple Pay and Google Pay. The overall share of customers who only interact with us on their mobile device increased to 37% in 2019 from 26% in 2018.
“We amplifi ed our customer focus by holding our fi rst global customer experience (CX) day in the fourth quarter. Close to 6,000 employees in 13 countries made more than 750 improvements to the customer experience. Our global insurance partnership with AXA reached another milestone in 2019 by going live with its global platform, which will provide home, mobility and health insurance services in six markets via the mobile app. The fi rst product launched on the platform is home insurance, delivered by the ING mobile app in Italy. This is in addition to the six products launched outside the platform in 2019. And Yolt, our personal fi nance aggregator, reached over 1 million users and was chosen as the best personal fi nance app at the International Payments Awards 2019.
“We believe in using our fi nancing to contribute to sustainability and combat the climate crisis, and we closed more than twice as many sustainable fi nance deals in 2019 than in 2018. Our eff orts continue to be recognised: we were ranked as
‘climate action leader’ by the leading global environmental disclosure platform CDP for the fi fth year. Countering fi nancial and economic crime remains a priority, too. We progressed in our KYC enhancement programme to improve the way we manage non-fi nancial risk. We continued our global rollout of KYC tools that enable us to onboard customers and monitor their transactions across our global network in an eff ective and consistent way.
“As I look ahead to a new year and new decade, I’m excited to have started 2020 in our new o ffi ce at the heart of the Cumulus Park innovation district in Amsterdam and with the launch of our new global brand strategy: do your thing. It represents our promise to make banking frictionless, allowing people to be free to do more of what moves them or their business.”
