ING is putting money aside to cover the risk that customers will no longer be able to pay their mortgage. Due to high inflation, mortgage customers are spending more money on energy and food and some people have too little money to pay the mortgage, the bank thinks.
According to preliminary figures from Statistics Netherlands, inflation rose to . in January 7.6 percent in the Netherlands. That is the highest inflation in decades.
At the moment there are no more customers who have payment problems, but according to ING there will be. “Inflation has risen enormously,” says Steven van Rijswijk, the top boss at ING. “Consumers have to pay more for the same products. Customers who are already in trouble can suffer from this. That’s why we put extra money in the noose pot.”
It concerns 346 million euros, the highest amount that the bank set aside in more than a year.
Profit doubled
Despite this setback, ING made just as much profit last year as it did before the corona crisis: 4.8 billion euros. That’s almost twice as much as in 2020, when the bank still had billions to set aside in case companies got into trouble.
The bank lent more money to customers last year. At the same time, additional savings kept coming in. In 2021, this involved an amount of more than 10 billion euros that customers brought to the bank and more than 30 billion euros that were lent out.
Profits could have been even higher. ING had to set aside 180 million euros to compensate customers who have paid too much interest in the past. Money was also set aside for the divestment of the consumer bank in France: 141 million euros. The savings of 1 million French customers yield too little for the bank, which is partly why ING wants to get rid of it.
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