ING Group

ING Group (Dutch: ING Groep N.V.) is a Dutch multinational bank and financial services company based in Amsterdam. It operates across retail, direct, commercial, investment, wholesale, and private banking, as well as asset management. As of March 2026, its total assets stood at €1,316 billion, placing it among the world’s largest banks. ING represents the Netherlands in the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 major European banks. It has been listed as a global systemically important bank since that list was introduced in 2011, and was designated a Significant Institution when European Banking Supervision began in late 2014, putting it under direct oversight by the European Central Bank. ING is also part of the EURO STOXX 50 stock market index.

The company’s name is an abbreviation of Internationale Nederlanden Groep, meaning “International Netherlands Group.” Its logo draws on Dutch symbolism used by earlier corporate predecessors, including Postbank. The original blue lion emblem was updated in 2000, then replaced by an orange version between 2007 and 2009.

ING’s origins lie in two Dutch insurance companies and government banking services. The oldest predecessor was the burial fund Kooger Doodenbos, founded in 1743 in Koog aan de Zaan by nine local men, who agreed to pool funds for proper burials of members. In 1820, an initial 300 guilders was deposited in a savings bank; by 1835, the fund stopped distributing surplus cash and instead invested it in the bank or securities. In 1949, Kooger Doodenbos—with insured capital of 30,915 guilders and 229 contracts—merged into Vesta, a birth-benefit life insurer from Amsterdam that had moved to Arnhem. Through further mergers, it eventually became part of Nationale-Nederlanden.

On 12 April 1845, King Willem II approved the founding of Assurantie Maatschappij tegen Brandschade de Nederlanden van 1845, a fire insurance company. It became the leading Dutch insurer, opening its first foreign agency in Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1857 and reaching 139 locations worldwide by 1900. It later renamed itself De Nederlanden van 1845. In 1863, the life insurer Nationale Levensverzekerings Bank was founded in Rotterdam. From 1932, the two companies cooperated on group and pension insurance; in 1938, De Nederlanden van 1845 acquired its first foreign insurer, De Vaderlandsche in Belgium. During World War II, both companies’ offices were bombed, killing 46 employees. They merged on 3 April 1963 to form Nationale-Nederlanden, combining the country’s largest and second-largest insurers. The group expanded internationally in the 1970s and 1980s, introducing its orange N logo in 1970. In 1986, Nationale-Nederlanden entered banking by becoming sole owner of the struggling mortgage bank Westland-Utrecht Hypotheekbank.

On the banking side, the Rijkspostspaarbank was created in April 1881 to offer savings through the post-office network, encouraging workers to save. Around 1916, the municipally-run Gemeentegiro Amsterdam (GGA) was set up to centralize Amsterdam’s municipal cash transactions, opening to private individuals in 1918. In 1961, GGA became the first Dutch bank to issue plastic payment cards (giropassen), and in 1969 it installed the country’s first ATM in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer district. In 1918, the Postcheque- en Girodienst (PCGD) was established within the state telecom PTT, creating the Netherlands’ first national giro payment system for working families and small businesses. In 1965, PCGD became the world’s first fully automated giro system, and in 1979 it took over GGA, centralizing Amsterdam’s municipal giro services. From 1979, these state-run postal financial services came under the prudential supervision of the Dutch central bank.

Separately, in 1927 the Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank (NMB) was formed from several institutions to provide credit to middle-class and SME businesses, following the Dutch banking crisis of the early 1920s. During World War II, the Dutch government took over 86% of NMB’s capital, and its gradual privatization continued into the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1960s, NMB focused more on retail and expanded internationally. In 1986, the Rijkspostspaarbank and PCGD merged into Postbank, which had over 7.5 million private account holders. That year, Postbank launched Girotel, the Netherlands’ first electronic home banking system (by 2006, it had become MijnPostbank, used by 2 million customers). The Dutch government privatized Postbank in 1987, allowing it to enter the free market with some restrictions.