ING Capital Life signs distribution agreement with Bank of East Asia’s Dalian branch

Hong Kong, 1 March 2006, ING Capital Life Insurance Company Ltd. (ING Capital Life), ING Groep N.V.’s joint venture with Beijing Capital Group, today announced that it has signed an agreement with the Hong Kong-headquartered Bank of East Asia (BEA), Dalian branch to distribute ING Capital Life products to Dalian citizens.

The cooperation marks the start of the first bancassurance agreement between a Sino-foreign insurer and a foreign bank in Dalian and comes on the back of BEA’s approval from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission’s (CIRC) Dalian office in July 2005 to be granted a “combination agency qualification” which entitles such sales. The cooperation, which comes into effect immediately, will include the sales of ING Capital Life’s group life insurance products in China via the bank’s Wealth Management Consulting Centre. More ING Capital Life products will be developed and distributed through BEA going forward. However, individual life products will not be sold via BEA initially pending regulatory approval of the bank’s special individual RMB business qualification by the end of 2006.

Mr. Bartholomew Ng, Country Manager for China, ING Insurance Asia/Pacific stated: “ING Capital Life agreement further supports our diversification of the distribution channels of our insurance products. Bancassurance is an increasingly important means of reaching our customers and in 2005 the share of ING’s total annualised premium equivalent sold via banks across the region rose to 22% from 14% in 2004.”

ING Capital Life is one of two ING life insurance joint ventures in China. With its headquarters in Dalian, ING Capital Life has a branch in Beijing, a provincial branch office in Shenyang, Liaoning Province and was recently granted approval by the CIRC to set up a provincial branch office in Jinan, Shandong Province. ING Capital Life is among the top three life insurance companies in terms of new individual business in its home market with accumulative premium income of RMB336 million at the end of 2005. ING Capital Life already has bancassurance agreements with the China Construction Bank and Bank of China in Dalian, as well as with the Bank of Beijing in which ING has a19.9% stake.

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, insurance and asset management to over 60 million private, corporate and institutional clients in 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of over 115,000 people, ING comprises a broad spectrum of prominent companies that increasingly serve their clients under the ING brand.

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