ING’s 2Q underlying net profit rises 19.7% to EUR 1,528 million

* ING Group’s 2Q11 net result was EUR 1,507 million, or EUR 0.40 per share, including divestments, discontinued operations and special items. The underlying return on IFRS-EU equity for the first six months of 2011 rose to 14.8%.
* Bank reported an underlying result before tax of EUR 1,304 million, including EUR 187 million impairment of Greek government bonds. The net interest margin was healthy at 1.42% and client balances increased for the eighth straight quarter. Risk costs fell 20.4% versus 2Q10. Operating expenses declined for the second consecutive quarter, but increased year-on-year. The underlying cost/income ratio was 59.2%, or 54.6% excluding market impacts.
* Insurance operating result rose 82.5% to EUR 690 million, fuelled by increases in the investment and technical margins. The investment spread rose to 99 basis points, primarily on reinvestments and higher dividend income. The administrative expenses/operating income ratio improved to 38.0%. The underlying result before tax was strong at EUR 673 million, despite EUR 123 million of impairments on Greek government bonds.
* ING maintained strong capital ratios during the quarter following the 13 May 2011 payment of EUR 3 billion to the Dutch State. The Bank’s core Tier 1 ratio remained robust at 9.4%, or 10.7% on a pro-forma basis including the impact of announced divestments. The Insurance IGD solvency ratio strengthened to 252%.
* Given the uncertain financial environment, increasing regulatory requirements and ING’s priority to repurchase the remaining outstanding core Tier 1 securities, no interim dividend will be paid in 2011.

“ING reached important milestones in the second quarter as we work towards the separation of the Group and the establishment of strong stand-alone banking and insurance companies,” said Jan Hommen, CEO of ING Group. “In May we paid EUR 3 billion (including EUR 1 billion premium) to the Dutch State, while maintaining strong capital buffers to withstand potential shocks given the uncertain economic environment. We reached an agreement to sell ING Direct USA, meeting one of the principal restructuring requirements imposed by the European Commission. And last week we announced an agreement to sell our Latin American life and pension businesses for EUR 2.7 billion, marking the first major step in the divestment of the Insurance and Investment Management activities.”

"The US and European & Asian insurance businesses are making good progress on performance improvement initiatives as they prepare for separate IPOs. The operating profit for Insurance increased compared with a year ago, as measures to improve returns continue to gain momentum. The Bank posted another strong quarter, as margins held up well and we continued to grow volumes in savings and lending despite the challenging operating conditions in the second quarter. As the economic environment and financial markets remain uncertain, we will reinforce our vigilance on costs by focusing on structural improvements in our processes and organisation, while continuing to invest responsibly in the growth of our franchises for the long-term benefit of our customers.”

Analyst and investor conference call, 4 August 2011, 9:00 Amsterdam time

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Media conference call, 4 August 2011, 11:00 Amsterdam time

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DISCLAIMER

ING Group’s Annual Accounts are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union (’IFRS-EU’).

In preparing the financial information in this document, the same accounting principles are applied as in the 2Q2011 ING Group Interim Accounts. All figures in this document are unaudited. Small differences are possible in the tables due to rounding.

Certain of the statements contained herein are not historical facts, including, without limitation, certain statements made of future expectations and other forwardlooking statements that are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation: (1) changes in general economic conditions, in particular economic conditions in ING’s core markets, (2) changes in performance of financial markets, including developing markets, (3) the implementation of ING’s restructuring plan to separate banking and insurance operations, (4) changes in the availability of, and costs associated with, sources of liquidity such as interbank funding, as well as conditions in the credit markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness, (5) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, (6) changes affecting mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (7) changes affecting persistency levels, (8) changes affecting interest rate levels, (9) changes affecting currency exchange rates, (10) changes in general competitive factors, (11) changes in laws and regulations, (12) changes in the policies of governments and/or regulatory authorities, (13) conclusions with regard to purchase accounting assumptions and methodologies, (14) changes in ownership that could affect the future availability to us of net operating loss, net capital and built-in loss carry forwards, and (15) ING’s ability to achieve projected operational synergies. ING assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or for any other reason.