AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS--(Marketwire - Nov 3, 2011) -

* ING Group's 3Q11 net result was EUR 1,692 million, or EUR 0.45 per share, including divestments, discontinued operations and special items. The underlying return on IFRS-EU equity was 13.9% for the first nine months of 2011.

* Bank underlying result before tax declined to EUR 1,063 million, including EUR 267 million of impairments on Greek government bonds. The net interest margin narrowed to 1.37%, primarily due to lower Financial Markets results. Risk costs rose to EUR 438 million, or 55 bps of average RWA. Operating expenses declined for the third straight quarter and were 2.9% lower year- on-year. The underlying cost/income ratio was 55.8%, excluding market impacts.

* Insurance operating result rose 27.0% to EUR 527 million, driven by a higher investment margin and higher fees and premium-based revenues. The investment spread increased to 104 bps. Sales (APE) grew 6.5% from 3Q10 and 5.2% from 2Q11, excluding currency effects. The underlying result before tax was EUR 561 million, supported by significant hedging gains which more than offset impairments, including EUR 200 million on Greek government bonds.

* ING maintained strong capital ratios in the third quarter. ING Bank's core Tier 1 ratio strengthened to 9.6%. The Insurance IGD solvency ratio was 242%.

Chairman's Statement

"The third quarter saw a marked deterioration on debt and equity markets amid a slowdown in the macroeconomic environment and a deepening of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. In this challenging environment ING's earnings remained resilient, and our strong funding position enabled us to continue to increase lending to support our customers in these uncertain times," said Jan Hommen, CEO of ING Group. "We continued to take a prudent approach to risk, increasing hedging to preserve capital and selectively reducing exposures to southern Europe. Results were impacted by EUR 467 million in pre-tax impairments on Greek government bonds as all bonds were impaired to market value."

"As income is coming under pressure, we must renew efforts to reduce expenses across the Group to adapt to the leaner environment and maintain our competitive position. In Retail Banking Netherlands we are taking decisive steps to reduce costs by decreasing overhead and improving efficiency through operational excellence. It is inevitable that these measures will lead to redundancies of approximately 2,000 internal FTEs and 700 external FTEs, but we will do our utmost to implement the measures with care."

"Despite the volatile market environment, we continue to work towards the separation of our insurance companies so we will be ready to move ahead with the IPOs when markets recover. Regulatory approvals are underway to create a separate holding company for our European and Asian insurance and investment management activities, and today we announced the creation of a management board for these operations. As we continue to advance on these priorities and our Ambition 2013 performance plans, we will remain focused on providing our customers with the exemplary service and products they need to manage their financial futures during these uncertain times."

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Figures(1) | | | |3Q2011 3Q2010(2)Change|2Q2011Change|9M20119M2010(2)Change -----------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------- ING Group key | | | figures (in EUR | | | million) | | | | | | Underlying | | | result before | 1,624 1,220 33.1%| 1,977 -17.9%| 5,725 4,185 36.8% tax Group | | | | | | of which Bank| 1,063 1,494 -28.8%| 1,304 -18.5%| 4,061 4,383 -7.3% | | | of which | 561 -274 | 673 -16.6%| 1,663 -198 Insurance | | | | | | Underlying net | 1,285 835 53.9%| 1,528 -15.9%| 4,276 2,984 43.3% result | | | | | | Net result | 1,692 239 607.9%| 1,507 12.3%| 4,580 2,680 70.9% | | | Net result per | | | share (in | 0.45 0.06 650.0%| 0.40 12.5%| 1.21 0.71 70.4% EUR)(3) | | | | | | Total assets | | | (end of period, | | 1,241 3.4%| 1,282 1,261 1.7% in EUR billion) | | | | | | Shareholders' | | | equity (end of | | 40 10.5%| 45 42 5.7% period, in EUR | | | billion) | | | | | | Underlying | | | return on equity| 12.1% 8.0% | 15.2% | 13.9% 10.2% based on IFRS-EU| | | equity(4) | | | -----------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------- Banking key | | | figures | | | | | | Interest margin | 1.37% 1.41% | 1.42% | 1.41% 1.40% | | | Underlying | | | cost/income | 61.3% 56.8% | 59.2% | 58.3% 55.6% ratio | | | | | | Underlying risk | | | costs in bp of | 55 44 | 47 | 48 53 average RWA | | | | | | Core Tier 1 | | 9.4% | 9.6% 9.0% ratio | | | | | | Underlying | | | return on equity| 8.6% 13.0% | 11.7% | 11.4% 13.0% based on IFRS-EU| | | equity(4) | | | -----------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------- Insurance key | | | figures | | | | | | Operating result| 527 415 27.0%| 690 -23.6%| 1,728 1,162 48.7% (in EUR million)| | | | | | Investment | | | margin / life | 104 84 | 99 | general account | | | assets (in bps) | | | | | | Administrative | | | expenses / | 40.7% 43.9% | 38.0% | 39.5% 44.1% operating income| | | (Life & ING IM) | | | | | | Underlying | | | return on equity| 10.9% -4.6% | 11.3% | 9.3% -0.9% based on IFRS-EU| | | equity(4) | | | -----------------+-----------------------+-------------+------------------- 

The footnotes relating to 1-4 can be found on page 15 of the full press release as attached to this message.

Note: Underlying figures are non GAAP measures and are derived from figures according to IFRS EU by excluding impact from divestments and special items.

Investor conference call, media conference call and webcast

Jan Hommen, Patrick Flynn and Koos Timmermans will discuss the results in an analyst and investor conference call on 3 November 2011 at 9:00 CET. Members of the investment community can join the conference call at 20 794 8500 (NL), 207 190 1537 (UK) or 480 629 9031 (US) and via live audio webcast at [ www.ing.com ].

A media conference call will be held on 3 November 2011 at 11:00 CET. Journalists are invited to join the conference in listen-only mode at 20 794 8500 (NL) or 20 7190 1537 (UK) and via live audio webcast at [ www.ing.com ].

Additional information is available in the following documents which can be downloaded from around 7:00 am CET from the following links at [ www.ing.com ] :

ING Group 3Q 2011 Results (Full Press Release in PDF)

ING Group 3Q 2011 Analyst Presentation (PDF)

ING Group 3Q 2011 Quarterly Report (PDF)

ING Group 3Q 2011 Group Statistical Supplement (PDF) (XLS)

ING Group 3Q 2011 Historical Trend Data (PDF) (XLS)

Interim Accounts ING Groep N.V. for the period ended 30 September 2011 (PDF)

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION

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 3Q2011 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 forward-looking 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. This document, and any other document or presentation to which it refers, do not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities.

PDF version of full 3Q11 Press Release: [ http://hugin.info/130668/R/1560352/482721.pdf ]

This announcement is distributed by Thomson Reuters on behalf of Thomson Reuters clients. The owner of this announcement warrants that:

(i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and

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Source: ING Group via Thomson Reuters ONE

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