ING Releases 2023 Annual Report Highlighting Resilience and Sustainability Commitments

ING Releases 2023 Annual Report Highlighting Resilience and Sustainability Commitments

(IN BRIEF) ING has published its 2023 Annual Report, offering stakeholders an overview of its strategy, business activities, and performance throughout the year. Despite facing numerous challenges such as geopolitical tensions, economic shocks, and climate-related disasters, ING has navigated successfully and achieved strong financial results. The report emphasizes ING’s commitment to sustainability, including enhanced disclosures on climate ambition, efforts to support customers in sustainable transitions, and policies aimed at reducing financing for activities harmful to the environment. Furthermore, it outlines ING’s focus on providing a seamless digital experience, maintaining operational safety and security, and promoting diversity, inclusion, and belonging within the organization. The report also covers areas such as risk management, corporate governance, and financial statements, underscoring ING’s dedication to transparency and responsible business practices.

(PRESS RELEASE) AMSTERDAM, 7-Mar-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — ING today published its 2023 Annual Report, giving stakeholders an insight into our strategy, business activities and performance over the past year. Our activities are presented in the context of our strategic priorities: providing a superior customer experience and putting sustainability at the heart of what we do.

“It is fair to say that 2023 was a challenging year on many counts: geopolitical and economic shocks, supply-chain disruptions, inflationary pressures, climate-related and other natural disasters, wars, and the continuing trend of societal and political fragmentation across the globe. Against this backdrop, we are proud that we were able to navigate these conditions successfully, make good progress on our strategy, and deliver a set of strong financial results,” said CEO Steven van Rijswijk and chairman Karl Guha in their message to shareholders, clients, colleagues, and other stakeholders.

The report includes further enhanced disclosures around our climate ambition and our efforts to support customers in their sustainable transitions. Also, we included a dedicated ESG section ahead of the introduction of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive that will be mandatory starting in 2025. During the past year, we further sharpened a number of policies, including restricting financing of mining and use of coal for steel making and on the gradual phasing out of financing upstream oil and gas activities towards 2040. We worked with industry experts and others to create a financing framework for the aluminium industry, in line with earlier established standards for steel and shipping. In addition, we announced our aim to to triple our financing of renewable energy to €7.5 billion per annum by 2025, up from our target set in 2022 of €2.5 billion.

We also report on the four areas enabling us to execute our strategy: providing a seamless digital experience, using our scalable tech and ops, staying safe and secure and unlocking our people’s full potential. On the latter, the report highlights our commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging, including an analysis of ING’s gender pay gap. While we made progress by increasing the representation of women in senior management positions from 29% to 31%, we realise there is still more to be done, especially about the under-representation of women in leadership positions, which will also help address the existing gender pay gap.

The report also features sections on Risk Management, Corporate Governance, and the definitive consolidated and parent company financial statements. The 2023 Annual Report is available to download on ing.com, along with the 2023 ING Bank Annual Report, Pillar III Report, and other relevant documents.

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ING’s profile

ING is a global financial institution with a strong European base, offering banking services through its operating company ING Bank. The purpose of ING Bank is: empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business. ING Bank’s more than 60,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.

ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock
Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).

Sustainability is an integral part of ING’s strategy, evidenced by ING’s leading position in sector benchmarks. ING’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating by MSCI was affirmed ‘AA’ in July 2023. As of December 2023, Sustainalytics considers ING’s management of ESG material risk to be ‘strong’. ING Group shares are also included in major sustainability and ESG index products of leading providers Euronext, STOXX, Morningstar and FTSE Russell.

Important legal information

Elements of this press release contain or may contain information about ING Groep N.V. and/ or ING Bank N.V. within the meaning of Article 7(1) to (4) of EU Regulation No 596/2014 (‘Market Abuse Regulation’).

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, except as described otherwise, the same accounting principles are applied as in the 2022 ING Group consolidated annual accounts. The financial statements for 2023 are in progress and may be subject to adjustments from subsequent events. 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 a number of factors, including, without limitation: (1) changes in general economic conditions and customer behaviour, in particular economic conditions in ING’s core markets, including changes affecting currency exchange rates and the regional and global economic impact of the invasion of Russia into Ukraine and related international response measures (2) ongoing and residual effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and related response measures on economic conditions in countries in which ING operates (3) changes affecting interest rate levels (4) any default of a major market participant and related market disruption (5) changes in performance of financial markets, including in Europe and developing markets (6) fiscal uncertainty in Europe and the United States (7) discontinuation of or changes in ‘benchmark’ indices (8) inflation and deflation in our principal markets (9) changes in conditions in the credit and capital markets generally, including changes in borrower and counterparty creditworthiness (10) failures of banks falling under the scope of state compensation schemes (11) non-compliance with or changes in laws and regulations, including those concerning financial services, financial economic crimes and tax laws, and the interpretation and application thereof (12) geopolitical risks, political instabilities and policies and actions of governmental and regulatory authorities, including in connection with the invasion of Russia into Ukraine and the related international response measures (13) legal and regulatory risks in certain countries with less developed legal and regulatory frameworks (14) prudential supervision and regulations, including in relation to stress tests and regulatory restrictions on dividends and distributions (also among members of the group) (15) ING’s ability to meet minimum capital and other prudential regulatory requirements (16) changes in regulation of US commodities and derivatives businesses of ING and its customers (17) application of bank recovery and resolution regimes, including write down and conversion powers in relation to our securities (18) outcome of current and future litigation, enforcement proceedings, investigations or other regulatory actions, including claims by customers or stakeholders who feel misled or treated unfairly, and other conduct issues (19) changes in tax laws and regulations and risks of non-compliance or investigation in connection with tax laws, including FATCA (20) operational and IT risks, such as system disruptions or failures, breaches of security, cyber-attacks, human error, changes in operational practices or ­­­inadequate controls including in respect of third parties with which we do business (21) risks and challenges related to cybercrime including the effects of cyberattacks and changes in legislation and regulation related to cybersecurity and data privacy (22) changes in general competitive factors, including ability to increase or maintain market share (23) inability to protect our intellectual property and infringement claims by third parties (24) inability of counterparties to meet financial obligations or ability to enforce rights against such counterparties (25) changes in credit ratings (26) business, operational, regulatory, reputation, transition and other risks and challenges in connection with climate change and ESG-related matters, including data gathering and reporting (27) inability to attract and retain key personnel (28) future liabilities under defined benefit retirement plans (29) failure to manage business risks, including in connection with use of models, use of derivatives, or maintaining appropriate policies and guidelines (30) changes in capital and credit markets, including interbank funding, as well as customer deposits, which provide the liquidity and capital required to fund our operations, and (31) the other risks and uncertainties detailed in the most recent annual report of ING Groep N.V. (including the Risk Factors contained therein) and ING’s more recent disclosures, including press releases, which are available on www.ING.com.

This document may contain ESG-related material that has been prepared by ING on the basis of publicly available information, internally developed data and other third-party sources believed to be reliable. ING has not sought to independently verify information obtained from public and third-party sources and makes no representations or warranties as to accuracy, completeness, reasonableness or reliability of such information.

Materiality, as used in the context of ESG, is distinct from, and should not be confused with, such term as defined in the Market Abuse Regulation or as defined for Securities and Exchange Commission (‘SEC’) reporting purposes. Any issues identified as material for purposes of ESG in this document are therefore not necessarily material as defined in the Market Abuse Regulation or for SEC reporting purposes. In addition, there is currently no single, globally recognized set of accepted definitions in assessing whether activities are “green” or “sustainable.” Without limiting any of the statements contained herein, we make no representation or warranty as to whether any of our securities constitutes a green or sustainable security or conforms to present or future investor expectations or objectives for green or sustainable investing. For information on characteristics of a security, use of proceeds, a description of applicable project(s) and/or any other relevant information, please reference the offering documents for such security. This document may contain inactive textual addresses to internet websites operated by us and third parties. Reference to such websites is made for information purposes only, and information found at such websites is not incorporated by reference into this document. ING does not make any representation or warranty with respect to the accuracy or completeness of, or take any responsibility for, any information found at any websites operated by third parties. ING specifically disclaims any liability with respect to any information found at websites operated by third parties. ING cannot guarantee that websites operated by third parties remain available following the publication of this document, or that any information found at such websites will not change following the filing of this document. Many of those factors are beyond ING’s control.

Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of ING speak only as of the date they are made, and 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 does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any securities in the United States or any other jurisdiction.

Media Contact:

Christoph Linke
Press officer
+31 20 576 4315
mailto:christoph.linke@ing.com

SOURCE: ING