ING climbs to 7th place in retail banking

Dutch-based ING announced a 27% increase on gross premiums underwritten for its Romanian insurance unit and the bank also climbed to seventh position in domestic retail banking. ING Bank has invested 53m euros in order to develop its retail unit network since the project’s launch in 2004. ING currently operates a network of 123 Self’Bank units (agencies dedicated to retail, operated via a franchise system) through which it serves 351,000 individual customers, according to data recently published by the group in Amsterdam. At present, the group wants to develop operations in Ukraine following the model used on the Romanian market. ING, which originally had a corporate bank profile on the domestic market, started its operations on the retail market practically from scratch in 2004. Misu Negritoiu, who came to the helm of the Romanian unit in 2006, has been given the task of turning the bank into a universal player by 2009. In Q2, ING Asigurari de Viata underwrote premiums worth 37m euros, up 27% against the same period last year.