ING pumps brakes on digital banking plans, plans 1,000 job cuts
Dutch lender ING is undergoing a dramatic realignment of its digital banking plans after 41.4% drop in net profits.
Steven van Rijswijk says the decision is due to “economic headwinds”
Maggie, ING’s project creating a standardised customer experience across in four European countries, is to be “considerably reduced”.
In an investor presentation, ING describes the cross-border integration at the heart of the programme as “discontinued”.
The switch of strategy has cost ING €140 million in sunk software development costs. On top of that, it will cost the jobs of up to 1,000 employees by the end of 2021.
ING announced its Q3 2020 results this week, showing the bank still recovering from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite an encouraging 163% increase in profits over Q2 2020, the bank is still down by 41% on the same period in 2019.
The bank’s stock price took a 6% tumble in the wake of the news.
In a statement, ING CEO, Steven van Rijswijk, says the bank is refocusing itself around three new key areas.
There include shared data lakes, cloud and modular IT; the re-use of already developed mobile architecture; and digitalisation of insurance, investments and consumer lending.
“The decision has been taken in light of the current economic headwinds,” says van Rijswijk.
“The challenging external environment requires that we remain flexible in ‘how’ and ‘where’ we deliver our Think Forward strategy.”
ING made the decision to consolidate its disparate innovation arms into ING Neo earlier this year.
Related: ING’s CEO urges regulators to give banks a PSD2 equivalent
