ING Group traces its roots to two major insurance companies in the Netherlands and the banking services of the Dutch government. In 1991, the insurance branch of
Nationale-Nederlanden and the banking branch of "NMB Postbank Groep" merged. NMB stands for "Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank". in
Leeuwarden, 2008
Insurance In 1845, the fire insurance company
Assurantie Maatschappij tegen Brandschade de Nederlanden van 1845 ("Fire Insurance Company of the Netherlands of 1845") was founded. It grew to be the leading Dutch insurance company with branches outside the Netherlands (139 the world over by 1900). It later changed its name to "De Nederlanden van 1845". Two decades later, in 1863, the life insurance company
Nationale Levensverzekerings Bank ("National Life Insurance Bank") was founded in Rotterdam. These two insurance companies made multiple acquisitions, and in 1963 merged to form the
Nationale-Nederlanden insurance company.
Nationale-Nederlanden expanded significantly during the 1970s and 1980s.
Banking In 1881, the Dutch government created the
Rijkspostspaarbank, a
postal savings system to encourage workers to start saving. Four decades later, they added
Postcheque and
Girodienst services allowing working families to make payments via post offices. Separately in 1927, the Dutch government initiated a re-organization of Dutch banks which resulted in the creation of the
Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank (NMB). NMB provided
retail banking services in the Netherlands and abroad. In 1986, post office banking services were privatized as
Postbank N.V. and three years later it would merge with NMB bank to form
NMB Postbank Groep.
Merger of banking and insurance In 1991, the banking business of NMB Postbank Groep and the insurance business of Nationale-Nederlanden were merged to create
ING Group.
Further acquisitions headquarters in Brussels Since the ING Group was founded, it has made many acquisitions:
International expansion ING Group expanded its international business through several acquisitions through the 1990s including the Belgian bank
Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL) in 1998, US-based insurance company
Equitable of Iowa and the commercial bank
Furman Selz. It also acquired Frankfurt-based
BHF-Bank in 1999, although it disposed of this later. It increased its
Latin American and Asia Pacific insurance businesses with the acquisition of
ReliaStar and
Aetna's
Financial Services unit. It also acquired the Polish
Bank Śląski and Mexican insurance company
Seguros Comercial América. The 1995 purchase of
Barings Bank for one pound after its dramatic failure led to a boost in the company's wholesale banking
investment banking business. Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German–British Baring family of merchants and bankers Expanding its retail banking business overseas, ING used the
direct banking business model it had developed with NMB Postbank to launch direct banking in other countries. The first of these was set up in Canada in 1997, and was soon followed in several other countries including the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Australia. in Rotterdam, 2014
Capital injection and divestiture In 2008, as part of the
2008 financial crisis, ING Group, together with many other major banks in the Netherlands, took a capital injection from the Dutch government. This support increased ING's
capital ratio above 8%, however as a condition of Dutch state aid, the EU demanded changes to the company structure, including the sale of insurance businesses in Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and ING Direct units in the US, Canada and the UK. This included the sale of the ING Direct US operations to
Capital One, ING Direct Canada to
Scotiabank (doing business as
Tangerine) and the ING Direct UK operations to
Barclays Bank in 2012. The spun-off insurance businesses in North America were renamed
Voya Financial in 2014. In April 2016, ING sold the last shares in NN Group, making it exclusively a bank again. Since the largest settlement ever in the Netherlands by Vimpelcom in 2016, its house banker ING has also come under fire from the Public Prosecutor's Office. As a result of the Vimpelcom case, among others, it was announced in 2018 that ING reached a €775 million settlement with the Public Prosecutor's Office. According to the prosecution, the bank was negligent in preventing money laundering. Between 2010 and 2016, clients misused accounts at ING to launder hundreds of millions of euros. In February 2018, ING bought fintech company Payvision founded by Rudolf Booker for 350 million. In July 2025, ING Group finalised the acquisition of a 17.6% stake in private bank
Van Lanschot Kempen, thus bringing its total share to 20.3%. == Controversies ==